


Christmas Oneshots 2018

by HyperKey (Sylverstia)



Series: Christmas shenanigans [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Advent Calendar, Angst, Christmas, Fluff, Grief, Whump, cheesy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-05 09:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 22,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylverstia/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: Off to another try.A series of loosely connected  one-shots, every day from December 1st until December 25th.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god. I am doing it again...
> 
> Last year failed gloriously. ... But hey, i have more time this year. LETS DO THIS.
> 
> This is not part of my other fics, although i might accidentally reference things. I try not to.

Connor was roused out of standby unusually early. Hank was not supposed to be awake before six am, unless something had ripped him out of his sleep. Which seemed to have been the case, as he was standing next to the coffee machine, arms crossed, still dressed in t-shirt and shorts, definitely only half awake.

“Sorry for waking you up.” The older man sighed as he grabbed the cup the machine had just filled and put it on the counter. He flipped through a book and cursed silently, then went looking for something in various cabinets and obviously did not find it.

“What are you looking for?” Connor asked, curious now.

It was strange for Hank to look for things in his cabinets. He usually knew where everything was.

“Cookie cutters.”

Connors LED blinked to yellow and Hank gave a gruff laugh. “Did you google that?”

“You want to make cookies?” The android asked instead of answering the question.

“Precinct does this every year. Hit me this time.”

Connors frown deepened. “I assumed donuts were staple food of the DPD.”

“It’s December, for fucks sake. Lemme make the cookies now so I get it out of the fucking way.”

Connor noticed several things about the Lieutenant then. His hands were shaking, heart rate elevated. Blood pressure high. His hands were sweating and he looked uncomfortable.”

“Hank-“

“Shut up. Let me find the fucking things.”

Connor backed away, not understanding the sudden dip in the Lieutenants emotions. Something had upset him, yet Connor couldn’t draw a reliable conclusion. He connected to his phone to research. Baking cookies seemed to be a common practice for humans.

_Especially humans who had children._

“I’m sorry.” He apologized. “I wasn’t aware of the emotional involvement in cookie baking.”

Hank snarled. “Just shut your fucking mouth.”

“However,” Connor continued, voice raised just a fraction, “I could help you looking for them.”

Hank turned around, face red now. He was furious as he raised a hand and point to the door. “Get the fuck out of my house. I had a shitty night because of this fucking thing, and I really don’t want to deal with your shit right now!”

Connor took a step backwards, taken by surprise at the outburst. Hank hadn’t yelled at him like that in weeks. A horrible weight settled in his chest and he just wanted it gone again. Hank was upset because this reminded him of Cole.

But Connor hadn’t really done anything wrong. Had he? Perhaps it had been better not to press the matters?

He wasn’t supposed to fail. He wasn’t supposed to compromise the relationship with the only human being he could trust.

Slowly he turned, walked to the door. A human would have called it a shock. For him it was a jolt to his system, processors running wild and eating up all his resources. He hadn’t realized he had stumbled over one of Sumo’s chew toys when he was already on the floor.

Disoriented he sat up, frustrated at the failure to detect the obstacle.

Hank looked his way until he had made sure that the android was fun and resumed to look through the cabinets.

Hank wouldn’t find them, Connor was sure.

But was Hank not finding them on purpose, or were they really not there?

When Connor returned to the house an hour later Hank was covered in flour, half-heartedly pressing cookie cutters into the dough he had made. He didn’t look happy, but he had found what he had been looking for.

“You back?”

“It would appear so.” Connor muttered, voice an edge he had not intended to make audible.

While Hank had calmed down, Connor was still angered at the Lieutenants outburst. Emotions were horrible at times and he hated them occasionally.

Like right now.

“Look,” Hank sighed and turned, holding the shape of a star in his hands. “I hate Christmas, I hate everything involving it and I am not happy that I have to do it this year. Fuck the holidays. There’s nothing to celebrate anyway.” He grumbled. “The country’s a fucking mess.”

“…I didn’t mean to be difficult, Hank.” Connor relented and held up a paper bag he had been holding ever since he had returned.

When he sat it on the counter and pulled out a ring of cookie cutters Hank snarled at him. “The fuck did you buy that for?”

Instead of replying, Connor pulled out various other items that hardly looked edible to the Lieutenant and frowned. “…Are you gonna poison them or what?”

“No.” Connor muttered. “While I looked up stores that held baking utensils, I came across a recipe for thirium based cookies.”

Hank lifted his eyebrows when he got what the android was trying to tell him. “Fine. Once I’m done.”

“Perhaps I could help you, if you are willing to show me how.”

The older man scoffed but stepped aside. “Fine, wash your hands… The more help the faster this is over. And don’t eat the shit.”

“Of course not Hank. Thank you.”

“Yeah, Yeah whatever. And put an old shirt on. The frosting stains like hell.”

“Of course.”


	2. Chapter 2

With three tin boxes filled with cookies they entered the precinct. No one paid attention to them. That wasn’t unusual, but the way the precinct seemed to have fallen into chaos, was.

Something had happened, and neither Connor nor Hank could figure out what.

Was it a breakthrough in a case? Had something else happened?

Hank managed to get a hold of Ben to fill them in. “There’s been a hit and run. Just a normal day, I guess. It’s almost strange to have routine cases.” Ben’s humorless laugh didn’t help adding light to the Lieutenants mood. “Cookies?” The detective motioned towards the two round boxes Hank was holding.

Hank rolled his eyes and walked into the breakroom to set them up, then turned to Connor who was holding one of the boxes. “You better keep a hold of those, don’t want someone accidentally eating them.”

Connor shook his head. “I was planning to share them with Cory and the other androids.”

Hank still hoped that the blue color on the counter in his kitchen would have disappeared when they returned home later. He watched his partner walk up to several of the station’s androids and offer them the cookies. The reactions he got were overall positive, until he reached the RK900 and only got a suspicious glance before the android returned to Gavin.

Gavin on the other hand seemed interested in the strange cookies and almost got his hand caught when Connor slammed the box shut a she tried to reach in.

“What the hell!” he complained.

“Thirium cookies.” Connor explained. “Hank has made cookies for humans to eat.”

Gavin scowled and turned to glare at his partner. “The hell you didn’t take the cookies for then?”

Cory didn’t look up from his screen when he replied, “There is no need to replenish the thirium supply of this unit. And there is no point in eating any of the cookies for you either. You had breakfast.”

Gavin snarled and crossed his arms as he walked towards the break room. “Fucking watch me, tin can.”

He made sure to take the long way to the room and returned with a small plate decorated with several cookies and two donuts. While Cory glared at the detective Connor had opened his box again and held it into Cory’s direction.

“Why do you indulge in such human behaviors?”

Connor shrugged at the younger android. “I simply enjoyed making something by myself, instead of destroying everything I touch.”

“Shiiit,” Gavin muttered under his breath. “It’s too early to go that deep.”

Connor shot him a warning glare but didn’t say anything. He shook his head instead and returned to his desk, looked at Hank who was already waiting.

“No getting through to those dickheads, huh?”

“I believe they are both more stubborn than they should be.”

Hank laughed and held up his donut. “So, could you eat human food?”

“Androids don’t have any need to eat.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know that. But could you?”

Connor shrugged. “There are no records of that. Although I believe there would be no point. Androids do not need food to sustain themselves and we can’t taste things like humans can.”

“but you can analyze.”

Connor nodded. “Yes, and I can tell you even without analyzing that this donut is way too high in fat and sugar to be eaten at any point in the day.”

Hank snarled at him and demonstratively bit off a large chunk of the donut.

“Fuck you, kid. Fuck you.”


	3. Chapter 3

When cheesy 80’s Christmas music filtered through the bullpen Hank groaned and looked around for the culprit. Said culprit was a young Asian officer known to him only a Tina. The woman worked in another precinct, but she seemed to be good friends with Gavin and missed no chance to visit when she could.

“Out of all songs she chose one as horrible as last Christmas.” Hank grumbled under his breath and glared at the screen in front of him while grinding the cookie to dust with his teeth.

“The Song Last Christmas was released by the band Wham! In 1984… and…” Connor trailed off in his explanation.

Hank shit him a suspicious glance, but waited at the Androids LED flickered to yellow as he processed whatever he was thinking about.

“I don’t think I can figure out what the song is about.”

“A broken heart. Pretty stupid shit. Song used to be all the rage back when I was your age.” Hank sighed and let his eyes wander back to the E-mail he had opened. His parents had actually invited him. As they did every year. Why was he even surprised at it? He even considered going this year. He hadn’t seen them since the funeral three years ago.

“I have finished our reports for the past week, and am looking into new cases now.” Connor muttered, intentionally ignoring the age comment. He knew Hank wasn’t really refereeing to his actual age. It was more his appearance that gave the impression of him being older.

“Please find one that doesn’t require going outside. It’s fucking freezing out there.”

“There are three cases that would require an investigation, however they are minor complaints without any harm done to either party.”

“Then why the fuck did _we_ get them!?”

Connor shrugged. Hank still found it strange sometimes when he did that. It was so human, so natural. So unusual for an android.

“Android involvement.”

“Fuck that. If no one’s dead or injured, let someone else do it. Tina over there seems to have too much free time.”

Connor followed Hank’s gaze and noticed the young woman chatting away with Gavin, perched on his desk in casual attire. Although she looked more like she was ready to go out.

“Looks like they finally hooked up.” Ben muttered as he passed Hank and Connor and stopped when Connor shook his head.

“Tina Chen has texted officer Person multiple times in the past twenty minutes, as Person’s shift is coming to an end.”

“…You’re not supposed to spy on other’s phones, Connor.” Hank sighed. He sounded defeated, as if he had had that conversation too many times to count.

“I have concluded that through observation. I did not spy on anyone’s phone.”

“Whatever.” Hank muttered and waved his hand dismissively.

“See?” The android said after a moment and Hank was about to scold him when Officer Person hooked her Arm under Tina’s and the walked out of the precinct together.

“Okay, if you’re so smart, tell me what Gavin had for breakfast.”

“Scrambled eggs with parsley, bacon and orange juice.”

The lieutenant grimaced in disgust. “How the fuck do you know that?”

Connor gave him one of the fakest smiles he had ever seen and shrugged. “Intuition, maybe.”

“Yeah right.” Hank shook his head, eyes back on the mail. “Hey, Con… I might be out of town for Christmas.”

Connors face fell. “Why?”

“My parents invited me. Might be a good idea to go. They’re getting pretty old.”

The android looked at him with the puppy eyes as if Hank had just taken his most valued possession and crushed it. “No.” Hank hissed. “No, you are not coming with me. Absolutely not.”

“…They don’t like androids?” Connor concluded and slumped into his chair with an almost disappointed huff.

Hank should have stopped being amazed at how expressive the androids was at times, but right now he was too occupied with the issue at hand. “No. They have one too… But fuck how am I gonna explain that? What are you even?”

“Your roommate?”

“You sleep on the couch!”

“I don’t sleep, Hank.”

The lieutenant snarled. “You’re not coming. End of discussion.”

The android opened his mouth to protest, but Hank held up a finger with a warning glance and he decided it was better not to start an argument here.

Her would definitely bring this up again, however.


	4. Chapter 4

When they settled down at their desks the nest morning there was a small cardboard box waiting on Connors desk. It was dark blue with white snowflakes all over, a small white bow glued to the lid and a little card under it.

With a confused frown he picked it up and looked at the note. The writing was in big cursive letters, obviously human handwriting, but despite the hasty look of it, neat anyway.

‘Saw those in a store, Avery loves them. Thought you and Cory might enjoy them as well. Hugs, C.’

Connor looked at the desk of the RK900. A box of the same size was on his. It had a different design and it hadn’t been opened, only moved out of the way.

Curious about the contents of the box Connor picked up the lid and was greeted with copious amounts of blue tissue paper.

“What’cha got there?” Hank asked when he heard the paper crinkling. He was looking over the divider between their desks, and lifted an eyebrow at the box.

“I don’t know, But I think Cindy found something she thought I would enjoy.”

He pulled a small plastic bag out of the box, the contents visible through it. He couldn’t identify what it was but It looked like small figures of Santa Clauses and reindeer. The only strange thing about them was that they were blue.

Another similar package was inside the box, the content obviously chocolate. A note attached to that. ‘That’s for Hank, don’t eat this, Connor.’

Connor lifted the second bag up and handed it to the Lieutenant. “This is for you.”

Hank took it and eyed it, then scoffed. “What you get the fancy package and my gift is in there with yours?”

“I believe Cindy went out of her way to decorate two boxes. Chances are high that Cory’s box contains a gift for Gavin as well.”

Hanks gaze wandered to the unopened box on Cory’s desk. “They obviously don’t care.”

The android nodded firmly and opened the packed with the blue contents. The label underneath told him that it was Thirium based Chocolate. He wasn’t sure what to think about that. It was strange what people came up with these days. Or had androids done this?

He broke off a piece of a reindeer and held it to his mouth to analyze the contents. It was definitely what it said it was. Almost entirely made out of thirium, with a few other ingredients to help it retain shape. None of this was unsafe to consume.

He almost wished for the ability to taste. There was really no point in eating anything when all it got him was numbers. Numbers were nice, but there was no real comfort in that either.

“And?” Hank asked.

“I could list the exact contents of it. But I can’t determine if that is good or bad. I don’t have the ability to taste, Hank.” Connor reminded him.

“Ah, right. Man, that’s gotta suck with all the stuff for androids popping up.”

The android shrugged. “We should get Cindy a small gift too.”

Hank laughed at that. “The girl deserves more than a small gift; just think of all the times she saved your fucking ass.”

“I am worth several thousand dollars, I don’t think that you’d like to spend that much.”

“Hell no.” Hank sighed. “But she’s got a baby at home, and baby clothes are expensive, and babies grow like hell.”

“I’ll set a reminder.” Connors LED flashed to yellow as he accessed Hanks phone to remind him about it once their shift ended.

“I never get why you do that and don’t just remind me yourself. I thought androids have total recall.”

Connor smiled at him. “They do, but you tend to yell at me when I remind you of anything after our shift ended.”

“Right…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know i am trailing behind by a few days, sorry for that. Christmas break will start next week, hope to be able to catch up then.  
> Thank you all for your support!

Connor looked up when he noticed a commotion from the break room. Cory and Gavin were facing each other, Gavin pointed to the floor and yelled at him. At first Connor couldn’t hear him over the chatter of the other, but when they noticed whatever was happening, the noise level dropped to a deafening silence.

“Spit that out you fucking tin can!”

Connor’s mind already worked on piecing together what was happening. Cory had obviously taken something into his mouth that wasn’t supposed to be there. Evidence?

All humans were disgusted by the forensic unit in the oral area. But why would there be evidence in the breakroom.

Cory made no move to comply and Gavin continued yelling. Chris walked over to calm the human down, but was ushered away with a few words that seemed to be an explanation.

“Fine!” Gavin threw his hands in the air in defeat. “Be like that. Fucking idiot!”

3.16 seconds after Gavin had left the breakroom Cory dropped to his knees, LED a glaring red. The detective and Connor were already rushing up to him while the others where still trying to comprehend what had just happened.

Cory was sitting on the floor, LED a glaring red, frame trembling. His respiration system was suspended, eyes unseeing and wide.

“What happened?” Connor asked the detective as Gavin gripped his partners shoulder in a futile attempt to gain his attention.

“You’re so fucking stupid, Cory.” Gavin growled before he looked at Connor. “I fucking dared him to eat a cookie. As a fucking joke. _And he fucking did!_ ”

Connor nodded in understanding, not very happy about the explanation, but it gave him something to work with. He glared at the younger android. “…We’ll worry about the why later. What your status?”

Cory remained still and showed no signs of having heard the other. Gavin cursed. “I’ll get a tech.”

Connor nodded, eyes never leaving Cory. He could feel him start to overheat through his jacket, noticed the tremble increasing.

“You never do what he says, but chose to react to a stupid dare? Really?” The irony of the situation was almost amusing.

Almost.

Cory was having serious malfunctions and when Connor tried to interface, he was violently thrown out of the function.

He recoiled with a hiss and an angered glare at the younger android, his fall half shielded by Hank who now stood behind him. The human crouched down, not without complaining about his knees, and frowned when Cory suddenly made a sound that was anything in between a gag and a cough and jerked forward into Connor.

Connor grabbed him and frowned, almost jumped when Cory pit out an almost perfect bell shaped blue frosted cookie. It fell to the floor, covered in artificial saliva and Hank gave a disgusted grunt.

“You good?” He asked the android whose steel blue eyes slowly regained their spark.

Cory hesitated before he nodded once and leaned into the cabinets behind him.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Hank scolded him almost immediately. “You fucking poured coffee over Gavin on the first day, why listen now?”

“I think he wanted to mess with Gavin by making him think he took a human cookie…” Connor explained.

“But you took them to your desk-“ Hank sighed. He really didn’t need to be scared like that an hour before he could go home. That was what criminals were for.

“Sometimes I don’t know who’s the bigger idiot of you two. Don’t ever do that again!”  



	6. Chapter 6

Hank glared at the radio in his car as it played yet another Christmas song and turned the device off entirely. The cassette deck had broken just days before and he hadn’t gotten around to fix it yet, so now he was stuck listening to the actual local stations.

“May I ask-“

“No.” Hank growled before Connor had even finished his question.

Hank was aware that he had been unusually gruff towards the android lately, but he couldn’t help it. Christmas sucked and the days leading up to it were like slow climbing agony, getting worse and worse everyday until it was finally over.

These days he sometimes imagined Cole bounding through the house and playing with Sumo. But the only one play with Sumo, and tripping over his toys was an Android who was way clumsier than he dared to admit.

Connor thankfully stayed silent for the rest of the drive to the crime scene.

The android had the whole case solved in a matter of minutes, once more making Hank question why he even still came along. The amount of times Connor needed help with an investigation was limited to him getting physically impaired and unable to continue, or when he really was unable to think of a possible solution.

Which, admittedly, was quite rare.

“Get going, I don’t wanna stand in the fucking cold for another ten minutes.” Hank almost growled.

Connor followed him back to the car without a word, LED going yellow ever since Hank had interrupted him earlier.

“I’m not sure what I did, but I’m sorry if I upset you.” Connor muttered after Hank had started the car and drove back onto the road.

“Nothing.” Hank sighed. “It’s the fucking season, the tacky Christmas shit everywhere. I just want it to be over already.”

“The month had just begun.”

“Don’t fucking remind me.” The lieutenant sighed

“I have read articles about Christmas and it seems that it’s tradition to celebrate it with friends and family. Many androids are also celebrating it.”

Hank scoffed. “So you gonna celebrate it too?”

Connor shrugged. “I have never experienced Christmas before. I don’t know what makes it _magical_ , as people put it or why that is necessary.”

“You’re a lucky bastard, you know that?”

The younger male lifted an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because you don’t have any fucking emotions attached to a fucking holiday.”

The android was silent for a moment before he spoke again, “Markus suggested to celebrate the freedom of androids instead of a human holiday, although he did say that Carl celebrated Christmas with him.”

The lieutenant gave him a disbelieving glance. “What he actually got gifts?”

Connor nodded. “While he refuses to share details, I assume he liked the action. Would you like a gift for Christmas?”

“Hell no. And before you ask, No, I won’t put up any decorations, because I don’t have any. And if you buy any, I will kick you out of my house for the rest of December, got that?”

“Yes Lieutenant.”

Hank didn’t miss the flash of red reflecting at the window on Connors side of the car.


	7. Chapter 7

Hank shivered at the ice feel in his house as he slowly crept out from under the blanket. He yawned, somewhat irritated that it was still dark outside. He never woke up this early on his own. Well unless he really needed to take a leak.

The house was silent, as it would be around this time. Sometimes the TV was on, but tonight it was off.

Hank went about his business and headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water, flinched violently when he noticed Connor sitting at the dining table in the darkness, LED spinning yellow.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you almost gave me a heart attack!” the Lieutenant yelled into the darkness and in turn made the android jump, almost as if he hadn’t noticed him.

“You good?”

Hank couldn’t really see him nod, but the way the LED moved made it pretty clear. “The hell are you sitting in the dark for?”

“I was running a system check. It took longer than anticipated and my system initiated the standby mode.”

“Isn’t there usually something up when it takes long?” Hank had had his fair share of Connors random bouts of malfunctions in the past month.

And he hated every single one of them.

“There was a glitch in the thermal regulator.”

“You gonna overheat?” Hank asked with a raised eyebrow after he flicked the lights on and looked at the time. It was almost seven. There was no use in going back to bed.

The android had his quarter in one hand and one of Sumo’s chew-toys clutched in the other. He shook his head but the way his hands were shaking, Hank couldn’t shake the feel that he had been lied to.

“No, but if the glitch returns my system might be unable to compensate for temperature changes. It’s not much of a problem however.”

Hank nodded and went back into the bathroom to shower. “If you’re lying, I will find out.”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“That’s a lie right there!” Hank yelled through the closed door of the bathroom.

Twenty minutes Later Hank emerged in fresh clothing and was faced with a sandwich for breakfast. He eyes it suspiciously, checking it for any snuck in vegetables that he didn’t like, but couldn’t find any. Besides, he was hungry enough he probably wouldn’t have cared anyway.

But Connor worried him. There was a stare in his eyes that Hank didn’t like, and the way his hands were still shaking.

“Kid, spit it out. What’s up?” He sighed after a few minutes of looking at his friend.

“It’s irrational. The glitch is corrected, there isn’t really a reason to… and still…” Connor trailed off and resumed staring at the tiles as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

“And it scared you anyway. Happens.” Hank shrugged. “Wanna talk about it?”

Connor shook his head once more and put his jacket on, then hesitated when he reached for the keys. “…Is it…” he began, then stopped, thought about it and started again, “Is it… strange to be uncomfortable in cold environments?”

Hank lifted an eyebrow, then scoffed. “Not really. Who the fuck enjoys freezing all day?”

“I don’t.” Connor muttered silently. “I really don’t…”

Hank’s expression was a mix of suspicion and curiosity when he turned into the hallway once more. “Wait here.”

“Hank we’ll be late-“ The android protested, but was ignored.

Two minutes later Hank came back with a long dark winter-coat, a scarf and a hat. “Here. Can’t find the gloves, but take it.”

“Hank?”

“Well if you don’t want it then leave it. “

“No-“ Connor reached out for the soft fabric and almost looked eager to shrug into the coat.

Second later he was bundled up in the warm garments and looked significantly calmer.

“But don’t fucking overheat in this.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” He promised.

“I hope so because if you do, I’ll kick you ass.”


	8. Chapter 8

Back at the precinct Connor found another small gift on his desk, this time it was a pair of black gloves. There wasn’t any note attached and Hank only shrugged and took his coat of to throw it over his chair. Connor noted That the same gift had been placed on Cory’s desk and that the person who came up with the idea was most likely Cindy again.

The woman always made sure no one was left out.

The android took off the coat hank had lent him and almost immediately wanted to put it back on.

“It’s fucking freezing in here!” Hank complained just as the thought crossed Connors mind.

“Heaters malfunctioned.” Ben muttered from his desk. “They said someone’s gonna look into it in the afternoon.”

“Fucking great.” Hank snarled. “Hope there’s actual field work today so we don’t have to stick around here, freezing our asses off.”

Connor had to agree, even though he didn’t voice his complaint. The cold was uncomfortable and unsettling.

Two hours into their shift Hank had gotten himself another cup of coffee and set down another on Connors desk.

“Hank, I don’t-“ The android began, but the Lieutenant just smiled. “I know, but it’s cold in here and you’re probably cold too.” He nodded over to were Cory was sitting, almost hiding under Gavin’s coat while the human nursed a cup of coffee.

Connor appreciated the gesture and wrapped his hands around the cup, thankful for the warmth seeping through his fingertips.

“So, what actually is the dangerous temperature for androids?” Hank asked when he settled back down at his desk.

“32 degrees Fahrenheit.” Connor relied silently. “However, if left in too cold environments for too long, the temperature can also be higher.”

“So, what do you do to warm up?”

“Find a warmer place.”

Hank sighed. “Put on the coat.”

“That won’t raise my temperature. I can’t generate heat like a human body would be able to.”

“Put it on anyway, so there won’t be more escaping. That heater won’t be repaired anytime soon.”

Connor complied without another word, watched as Gavin and Cory left the precinct for a case and returned to his terminal to fill in the remaining reports.

Three minutes after that he noticed his joints locking up. It wasn’t cause for concern yet, but his system informed him to find a warmer place.

“Hank, my system alerted me to the low temperature, I shouldn’t be in this area for much longer.”

Hank was already half standing, grabbed his scarf on the way up. “Go to the car, put the heater on, I’ll talk to Jeffrey.” He handed Connor his keys and turned to the captain’s office.

Connor stiffly made his way out of the precinct and to the parking lot, almost dropped the keys twice when he tried to unlock Hank’s car. While he fumbled with the lock, he noticed Gavin had the same idea, but Cory didn’t look like he was in good shape. The android was slumped against the window in Gavin’s car, and even though the heater was working, the RK900’s LED was red and flashing rapidly.

Abandoning the thoughts in getting into Hank’s car, he instead walked over to Gavin who stopped fussing over Cory and opened the door when he saw Connor approaching.

“I didn’t do anything to him, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Gavin defended himself.

“No. But I assume his system temperature is critically low. How long has he been in the cold?”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Fucker spent the night in the precinct, wanted to review some cases. No idea how long he was there.”

“Hey Connor-“ Hank started, but stopped with a deep sigh. “What’s going on?”

“Cory’s system has reached critically low temperatures. We need to bring him to a warmer place.”

“And yours?” The lieutenant asked.

“Getting there. I shouldn’t be out here for much longer either.”

Gavin snarled in annoyance and not much later they dragged Cory into the elevator to Gavin’s apartment.

“So how do we do this?” Gavin asked as he unlocked the door and dragged his partner in, almost stepped onto the white cat that investigated the intruders. “Fuck off, P.” the detective snarled at the cat and glared at Connor.

“The bathtub would be the best solution. The water would help gradually raising his temperature.”

“Jokes on you, dipshit, I don’t have a bathtub.”

“A shower would be less effective, but also a solution.”

Gavin dragged the unresponsive android through the forked hallway and into the bathroom where he almost dropped him. Connor was already moving to undress the huge machine when Gavin decided he didn’t want any part in whatever these two were going to do in there.

So, he shut the door and headed into the kitchen where Hank was already sitting on a chair, petting the cat.

“You actually called your cat Pee?”

Gavin growled and threw his arms up in annoyance. “Your dog is fucking named Sumo, don’t get weird with names. And its Princess, not pee.”

Hank chuckled at the answer and nodded. “So, the two idiots okay?”

Gain shrugged. “Connor seems to know what he’s doing. Didn’t know they could freeze.”

“Yeah me neither.”


	9. Chapter 9

Hank noticed various Christmas ornaments in the kitchen of his colleague and glared at them for good measure. How someone like Gavin celebrated it was beyond him. The detective never struck him as someone to indulge in tradition. Especially not after He and Hank had declared open hate for the other and Hank stopped inviting Gavin over for the occasional dinner in an attempt to get the man out of his shell.

No. When Cole died Hank shot everything to hell and gave no fucks about anything anymore.

Until Connor showed up three years later.

Gavin leaned against the counter as Hank wordlessly continued to pet the cat. The silence between them was bordering on awkward but neither of them made a move to end it. They didn’t have to when there was a crash and a heavy thud in the bathroom a bit later.

Training in both officers set in immediately. There was no threat in the house, but they needed to figure out what happened.

Gavin was betting that Connor had slipped and bashed his head in. The idiot was clumsy enough to do that. How the android managed highspeed chases without fucking up all the time was something he still hadn’t figured out. All in all, Cory showed that he was the better model in practically all situations, quite often.

“Hey prick, the fuck are you doing to my apartment?” Gavin shouted at the door.

His hand rested on the handle, already pushing down. When there was no reply the detective snarled and opened the door.

Both of them were met with a sight they had half expected.

The androids were in the shower, dripping wet. Undressed and looking miserable. Cory’s steel blue eyes focused on Gavin as If to blame him for whatever happened, while Connor sitting next to him as if his legs had slipped out from under him.

There was a gash on his cheek and thirium trailed slowly over his cheek to drip into the water and disappear down the drain.

“The hell are you two doing?” Hank sighed and shook his head, already looking for towels. He found the stack of freshly washed towels on a shelf next to him and just threw two at the androids.

“Sorry.” Connor muttered and slowly got him, unusually unsteady. He used the wall to support himself and the two humans backed out of the bathroom.

“Don’t break my things! That includes the android!” Gavin yelled when he pulled the door shut with more force than necessary.

Hank scoffed with a smirk and leaned against the wall.

“What so funny old man?”

“He’s gonna fall again.”

“I hope not because then I’ll kick him out of there.”

Hank shook his head. “They fucked up with his balance thing. When he takes the shoes off, he’s instable as fuck.”

Gavin’s frown deepened at that. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“Bashed his head in when he took a shower at my place the first time.”

Gavin scoffed, but eyed the door a bit more cautiously now. Not much later both androids left the bathroom, now dry and dressed. They looked presentable. Except for the gash in Connors cheek.

Hank lifted his eyebrows at the damage but Connor brushed it off. “Superficial. It will repair itself.”

“Good, then let’s get out of here and back to the precinct.”

“I’d prefer to stay warm for a little longer.”

“I don’t think Gavin’s gonna tolerate us here much longer.”

The detective shrugged and started brewing a pot of coffee. “I’m not going back there just to freeze my fucking ass off. Fowlers own fault if he can’t pay the pricks to repair the damn thing faster.”

Hank had to agree. He wasn’t eager to be gold again either.


	10. Chapter 10

When it happened, no one was prepared. Gavin hadn’t expected his partner to go down on his knees, hands covering his face and a howl escaping his lips that didn’t sound human. Instinctively the Detective had jumped away several steps, but was now crouched at this partner’s side before anyone else could have the same idea.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, voice steady and calm despite the turmoil inside of him. Years of training.

Cory’s LED was a bright red, spinning rapidly. It wasn’t flickering, which seemed to be a good thing in general. But that wasn’t any answer to his question.

The android’s breathing was suspended, frame shaking violently. If anything, Gavin would have compared it to a panic attack.

But that didn’t sound like the solution here. The crime scene wasn’t any more disturbing than other shit they had seen, and Cory had handled all cases perfectly so far.

Someone shone their flashlight at them and Cory shrank pack even more, back impacting with the wall in the dark building.

“Turn the fucking torch off!” Gavin hissed at the officer, loud enough to make Cory flinch again.

He cursed under his breath and gripped his phone to call the technician the DPD had on dispatch. He frowned at the 35 unread messages.

They all were form the android.

Hoping it was some sort of explanation, he opened the messages and was met with lines upon lines of codes that didn’t make any sense.

“The fuck is this?” Gavin asked when he scrolled to the end of it.

‘Error log’ Cory replied under the last message.

“This is fucking wild. Can you make this simple? I don’t know how code works.”

‘Unit Cannot reply verbally. Several systems down.’

Gavin nodded. That made sense. “So, what the fuck do I do?”

‘Silent place.’

“Okay. Can you walk?”

Instead of replying Cory only nodded and leaned heavily onto Gavin as the man pulled him to his feet. Slowly the made their way out of the house and Gavin only spent seconds to explain the situation before he was back with the android and guided him to the car.

The moment Gavin pulled his door shut all hell broke loose.

His phone didn’t stop receiving messages and Cory’s fingers dug hard into his hair. Gavin was afraid he would rip all his hair out. There were several strange noises coming from the android, none of which sounded human in any way. It sounded more like dial up noises.

The detective let lose a long string of curses while his mind raced to find a solution.

Cory was shaking worse than before, LED still red.

And now there were tears dripping into his lap as he hunched over and tried to curl into himself.

“Are you hurt? How the fuck did this happen?”

The android shook his head violently, grip on his own hair tightening.

“Is this some sort of panic attack?”

Another headshake.

“Do you need a technician?”

A third headshake. Gavin cursed again. So, they had to ride this out. Somehow. He put his phone on silent, but kept an eye on it in case there was anything comprehensible posted. So far that didn’t seem to be the case.

Eventually Gavin noticed the rising temperature in the car and realized it was coming from the android.

“You’re overheating.” He stated.

A nod.

“Can you do something about that?”

Another nod, and Cory’s breathing resumed. It was rapid, almost wheezing. Gavin rolled the window down to let the winter air inside.

“Jesus Christ calm down.”

‘Can’t. Too many errors.’ Appeared on his phone.

“…fuck this.” Gavin hissed and grabbed the phone to call the technician at the precinct, and was promptly put on hold.

“I don’t fucking believe this.” He growled, noted that Cory was blindly reaching out with one hand, obviously trying to find something.

Gavin caught the hand and was immediately pulled close. At a loss, he put the phone on the dashboard and wrapped his arms around the trembling frame of the android. Whatever that did, the trembling slowly died down and the androids breathing pattern corrected itself.

Minutes later Gavin was carefully pushed away and Cory leaned back into the seat as if exhausted.

“The fucking hell was that?”

“The sensors got locked in a loop and repeatedly threw information at me that I couldn’t filter out.”

“Again.”

Cory nodded.

“That’s the worst you had so far.”

Another nod.

“You should get that checked out.”

“Affirmative.”


	11. Chapter 11

By day eleven Hank wanted to murder who had changed the playlist on his phone to Christmas songs. Connor insisted that it hadn’t been him and for some strange reason the android had a fucking alibi too.

While the Lieutenant was busy fixing the mess his phone was now, Connor was surprised to see Gavin walk up to him with a file and a cup with a strange beverage.

He put the file on the desk and sipped from the cup as he opened the file. “So Cory insists he can solve this, but he’s tried for two hours and made absolutely no progress. Opinion?”

Connor read through the file, frowned for a second and loaded up several preconstructions. Something inside him felt strange about Gavin coming to him for an opinion. Cory had been here for over a month, and had been better at anything. He was faster in any regard. He saw things Connor could only assume. His sensors were extremely sensitive and delicate.

But Connor could see how that might have been a hindrance when faces with something simple.

“Have you questioned the gardener?”

“Multiple times.”

“Ask him again, mention lilies.”

Gavin lifted an eyebrow. “Wait what?”

Connor pointed to the pictures in the folder and arranged then in a new order. “The lilies create a face. See?”

Connor could see the moment of realization on Gavin’s face. “Okay. Now that makes sense.”

“It’s not a solution to the case, but maybe a clue. Cory didn’t mention this?”

Gavin leaned in and chuckled. “I think this facial recognition thing got fucked up with him.”

Connor nodded in understanding and watched the man leave with the folder, then noticed that Gavin had forgotten his mug on the desk. Connor grabbed it to bring it over to the detective, but got curious about the contents of it.

“Don’t.” Hank warned from his desk as if he had seen what the android was up to.

“I was simply going to analyze the contents of the beverage.”

“It’s eggnog. Don’t.”

He connected to his phone to look up the definition of Eggnog and frowned. Was this an acoholic version? It shouldn’t have been.

Before hank could stop him, he had sampled the beverage and deemed it nonalcoholic. The contents seemed like something humans were quite fond of.

“Stop sampling other people’s drinks that’s disgusting!” Hank hissed. “If you want to analyze shit get your own.”

Connor considered this for a moment, returned the mug to Gavin and went for the breakroom to fill the bottom of a plastic cup with the beverage he had just seen. When he returned to his desk Hank was just shaking his head at him.

“Sometimes you really act like your actual age, kid.”

“I can assure you I am not crying to gain attention, nor do I leave ‘nasty little surprises’ in my pants.”

Hank sighed deeply and grumbled something incomprehensible before he continued to work.

Connor had finished his paper work half an hour ago, he as going to get to the bottom of why this beverage was so interesting to humans. In the past two hours he had noticed every single person in the bullpen get a cup of it.

Except for Hank.

But at this point Connor was sure Hank just did that to be stubborn.


	12. Chapter 12

On the way home Hank noticed that Connor’s LED had been yellow for quite a while now. When Hank pulled up on the drive the android needed a long time to open the car door.

“Are you doing okay?” Hank asked eventually.

Connor gave him an uneasy smile and headed for the front door to unlock it. “Just a few errors.”

Hank massaged his temples with a resigned sigh, locked the front door and headed into the kitchen for a coffee. When Connor made no comment about the coffee habit, he turned to look at the android.

Connor had taken off his jacket and settled down on the couch, somewhat curled in a blanket already. Something was strange, especially the silence. Usually Connor would want to review cases, or talk about every day things.

“Okay,” Hank leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “What did you do?”

The brown eyes went wide in realization of being found out. “Something I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh really?” the Lieutenant snarled and walked over to his friend to sit next to him on the couch.

“The beverage I sampled, I couldn’t reach into the cup so I made an attempted to sample it from the cup.”

“Okay?”

“I overwhelmed my system by miscalculating the amount of liquid in the cup.”

Hank fought to keep his laughter to himself, but a small chuckle broke loose. “You are such an idiot, Connor.”

The android grimaced, then nodded. “I shouldn’t have tried to sample it again, although Gavin’s DNA was contaminating the first sample.”

“God you’re disgusting.” Hank sighed. “So, what now?”

“The foreign material needs to be expelled.”

“And you haven’t done that yet, why?”

“Humans find it quite unsettling.”

Hank thought about that for a moment, then seemingly acquired the knowledge he needed and nodded. He walked back into the kitchen and grabbed a bucket. “But it’s making your systems… do things they shouldn’t do, right?”

“My systems are overheating because they are working to keep the contamination away from my biocomponents.”

Hank handed him the green bucket, and shook his head in slight amusement. “Then what the fuck are you waiting for?”

The android frowned.

Hank snarled. “What you think I’ve never seen someone puke before?”

“It’s not necessarily the same action, although it most likely looks familiar.”

“Quit stalling kid.” Hank sighed.

“I never had to do this before. It’s unsettling to think about.”

“Yeah, isn’t fun. But if that stays in there you gonna break, right?”

“In layman’s terms, yes.”

“Okay.” Hank muttered. “I gotta do the laundry anyway, so you do what you have to do and call me if you need anything, got it?”

“Got it.”


	13. Chapter 13

A package on Cory’s desk had the android wonder what it was supposed to be. Addressed to the DPD. No return address. As that was highly suspicious, he attempted to scan its contents but was met with interference.

Was it a bomb? It would make sense that he was unable to scan it then.

However, the weight and size of it were not right. A possible biohazard would have no direct effects on him but on the humans around him. But he also couldn’t spot any traces on that. The top part of it had a handwritten “open here” on it.

Gavin’s handwriting.

It was most likely a prank then.

Deciding not to humor the detective, he put the package aside and sifted through the stacked-up paper work on his desk.

When Gavin returned from his lunchbreak, he poked the package on Cory’s desk. “Didn’t open it yet?”

If this is another excuse to have me open your questionable taste in magazines so you won’t get blamed for it, I will not open it.

“It’s way too small for a fucking magazine. See it as an early Christmas gift.”

The android eyes Gavin with rising suspicion. His vital signs hinted on him being excited. In that impish way of his when he was planning something.

Wordlessly Cory gripped the package and opened it, only to be showered with copious amounts of red and golden glitter dust all over his face and shoulders.

The android reeled back in surprise, was on his feet in seconds while Gavin laughed. The others had undoubtedly noticed the commotion, but Cory was already darting for the restrooms.

While Gavin needed a while to calm down, he could tell that Connor who had witnessed the whole thing from the breakroom was not impressed at all.

“What did you do that for?” Chris asked next to him.

“Oh, come on, it’s just a stupid prank, we did this all the time as kids.”

He didn’t like that no one else found it funny. But Cory needing ages to come back was worrisome. Reluctantly he headed for the restrooms and found the android hunched over a sink, water running on full force. His jacket had been discarded, carelessly lying on the floor.

“…Man, you ruin even the funniest pranks.” Gavin snarled over the spray of water.

Instead of responding Cory just continued to splash water over his face and rubbed frantically at his eyes. Then the pang of guilt hit Gavin.

“Shit.” He cursed and walked up to his partner, a hand on his back. “…that was not supposed to happen.” he muttered when he realized that the glitter had gotten into the other’s eyes.

“It did happen, however.” Cory finally responded and turned the water off. When he looked up at Gavin, the human grimaced.

“Please tell me that didn’t do damage.”

“The left unit is unaffected. The right needs to be looked at by a technician.”

Gavin snarled, and nodded. “It was just supposed to be a joke.”

“I will retaliate in kind.” Cory warned then and left the room.


	14. Chapter 14

Finding the trail of glitter leading up to her small lab, somewhat amusing Cindy entered the room and was only mildly surprised at the two occupants.

“I swear is see you two here more than Hank and Connor.” She sighed and closed the door behind her.

“What happened?”

Gavin seemed almost nervous when he opened his mouth to explain to her what had happened. “Glitter bomb… shit got into his eyes.” He muttered and motions towards Cory who was occupying one of the three chairs in the room.

Cindy blinked for a moment, then scoffed. “Now that’s actually something I didn’t have to deal with before.”

Shaking her head, she put on gloves and grabbed a penlight. “Always something new with you two, huh?”

“I thought cleaning android eyes was normal?” Gavin muttered, remembering the last time Cory had his eyes messed up.

“Glitter is nasty.”

Gavin sighed, watched as Cory flinched when Cindy carefully touched the android’s face. “It’s okay.” The woman reassured. “I’m just trying to see what’s going on.”

In the end she couldn’t do much more than clean his eyes properly. “Right optical unit is damaged badly.” She explained. “I can either take it out and repair it, or leave it in and order a replacement. What’s your opinion on this, Cory?”

The android almost seemed to squint at her, LED yellow as he contemplated the solution. “How long would it take to repair it?”

The woman shrugged. “A few hours, given no other android gets anything more urgent.”

“Repair it then.” He said with an edge to his voice that was undoubtedly directed at Gavin.

Cindy nodded, disconnected the unit and covered the now empty socket with something that looked way too close to an eyepatch for Gavin to like it. Cindy explained that it was to keep dust out, but something about it was unsettling and somehow still amusing.

Barely fifteen minutes later they returned to the bullpen, where Cory immediately cleaned the glitter from his desk and didn’t spare a second glance at Gavin.

The human of the two wasn’t impressed at the behavior.

“Okay, tin-can, I’m sorry, it wasn’t supposed to end like this but sulking isn’t going to help.”

Cory calmly proceeded to wipe the glitter into the trash-bin under his desk and ignored the Detective.

Gavin huffed, crossed his arms and slumped into his chair, glaring daggers at the android. Cory eventually settled down again as well.

“…You guys don’t actually feel pain, right?”

“No.” Cory finally responded. “However, experiencing a significant amount of warnings in a short period of time, is highly unpleasant and taxes the system.”

“So, it wasn’t pain… but it wasn’t fun either.”

“Your assumption is correct.”

Gavin sighed. “Do you wanna go home?”

“I am fully functional. The optical units only make up a small percentage of what I am actually seeing. I have explained this before.”

The detective snarled. “Yeah yeah, but really. They’d send a human home like this.”

“I am not human; therefore, the comparison is unsupported.”

Snarling, Gavin turned back to his terminal and stared at the blank screen for several minutes before he opened the drawer, he had put the package in from a few days ago, after Cory told him he could have it.

He opened the Christmas themed box and revealed two packages that looked oddly similar, except for the color. Turning the package containing the blue looking chocolate in his hands he revealed it as thirium. So that was what Connor had been so excited about.

“Hey tin can,” Gavin muttered to get Cory’s attention. When Cory looked up, he was about to throw the package at him, but at the sight of the eyepatch just handed it over the divider between their desks.

“That was in the box you gave to me.”

Cory took the offered item and looked at it for a moment before he opened it. Meanwhile Gavin had replaced the box in his drawer, not interested in sweets.

“We really should go home.”

“…When the optical unit is repaired.”

“Hah. You gave in.”

“Please refrain from pulling pranks on me, Gavin.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t do the glitter shit again.”

“Or anything else that would inconvenience my functionality.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you, Gavin.”


	15. Chapter 15

Hank barely really spent time thinking about his lunchbreak. It was only when Connor insisted to have him try out something new that he was forced to contemplate his choices in food. And thus he found himself in a small café that looked like the places he would have frequented as a student.

Typical hipster joint.

He snarled when he ran into a Christmas tree on his way out of the café and was about to head back to the car when he noticed that something had caught Connors attention.

The android was standing still, head turned, listening to something Hank couldn’t really hear. It sounded like music.

“Someone is singing.”

“So what.” Hank growled back and made another step towards the car.

“I’d like to get closer-“

“We’re on lunchbreak.” Hank reminded him.

“We still have 35 minutes left until we have to get back to the precinct.”

As usual, there was no getting through to the android. And so Hank locked his food in the car and followed his partner. The snow was making it difficult not to slip, even though they had thrown road salt all over it.

The closer he got to Connor the more he regretted it. He should have expected it, there were enough decorations strung upon trees to make it clear that there was a Christmas market going on. And now that he had caught up to his partner, he could hear the singing too.

A children’s choir, singing old Christmas songs.

Most likely a fundraiser. Hank didn’t really care. The moment he saw all the kids on the stage in their white robes with angel wings and little golden halos he just wanted to get away.

Connor, of course, didn’t realize. He was still trying to get closer and only stopped when Hank grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

“No.” he rasped, voice giving out.

He cleared his throat and turned, almost pulling Connor after him. The android didn’t resist, otherwise, Hank wouldn’t have been able to move him with such easy.

“Hank- Why-“ Connor stumbled as Hank yanked him along, only barely able to catch his balance on the slippery ground.

“Let go of me.” The android protested and stopped.

His shoes dug into the ground and Hank turned around, face red and eyes glistening. “You have no fucking idea what you’re doing, right?” he snapped.

Connor frowned, LED under the hat spinning into yellow.

“How could you have any idea…” Hank hung his shoulders, all fight leaving him. “Just fuck all this Christmas shit. Fuck it and fuck you too.”

“Hank-“

“Shut up and get in the car or I leave without you.”

Back at the precinct there was a horrible tension between them that Connor couldn’t define. He wasn’t sure what had upset Hank that much. Christmas seemed to be a difficult time for him, but he thought that they had made progress. Hank hadn’t been so hostile in a while and him doing it now, for no real reason was almost painful.

He settled at his desk, unwilling to look at Hank. He would have liked to listen to the singing a bit longer. He still hadn’t found out the name of the song they had been singing, and so he couldn’t find it in any database either. It was ineffective to look it up song by song.

“Why did you pull me?” he asked eventually. Hank barely ever touched him. And while he didn’t feel pain, being yanked around like that could still cause issues in joints and systems.

“Just forget about it.” Hank growled back at him.

“No.”

“Finish your reports, leave me alone.”

“I don’t understand why you’re like this Hank. Explain it to me.”

“Just let it be for fucks sake!”

They didn’t speak again until their shift ended, and even on the ride home there was this eerie tension between them.

Connor was sure he had done something horrible to piss Hank off. And the fact that Hank wasn’t willing to tell him what that was, was frustrating. He couldn’t figure it out. Hank usually didn’t react this way when he acted in an awkward way, often even laughed about it.

Thinking about how hostile Hank was lately, and how he had already threatened to kick Connor out several times in just a few days, the android decided that it was better to take matters into his own hands and leave.

At least for the holidays.

When they entered the house, Connor gave Sumo a quick pat on the head and slowly gathered his things. There wasn’t much.

Two spare outfits, a pair of boots and a blanket that had been a gift from Cindy. Once he had all of it gathered on the kitchen-table he stuffed the items into a plastic bag and looked around the room. His phone wasn’t exactly his either. Hank had given it to him.

And the keys. He wouldn’t need them either.

When Hank left the bathroom, the keys fell out of his shaking hands.

He didn’t want to leave.

Who would take care of Sumo? Who would make sure that Hank wasn’t playing his stupid game again?

“…Connor?”

The android flinched violently and tried to hide the plastic bag but in turn just made it fall to the ground where it joined the keys.

“You going somewhere?” Hank frowned as he passed the android and headed for the coffee machine.

Connor wasn’t sure what to say. He could have lied, but what kind of lie would really suffice here? He was able to talk down murderers, petty criminals, but he was at a loss for words now. In a much simpler situation.

“I… I think-“ His voice was shaking, thin. He paused for a second and tried again. Why was this so hard? Why was it so difficult to do this?

“I think it is best if I left the house fore a few days. As you have been openly hostile towards me and refuse to explain your actions. I’m not sure what I did… but I’m sorry if I upset you.”

Hank put the coffee mug down on the counter, turned and walked up to the android. Connor almost flinched away, expected to be yelled at or hit, but instead of attacking, Hank only wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug.

There was a feeling inside’s the android’s chest that he couldn’t explain. It was almost painful, made him wish it would stop and disappear where it came from. He had felt that before. But still there was no name that made sense for it.

“Shit…” Hank hissed. “This… all of this shit… it reminds me of Cole.”

Hanks voice was so silent, Connor almost didn’t pick it up correctly.

“He loved Christmas. Decorated everything pretty much immediately after Halloween…” Slowly Hank pulled back and let his arms drop at his sides.

His eyes were locked on Connors and he started to get a hint of what was going on with Hank. The holidays were bringing up bittersweet memories. While he had no real reference of losing someone close to him, he was familiar with the theory of it.

“…I… fuck…” Hank ran a hand through his damp hair and shook his head. “I’m sorry… I really don’t know how to deal with all of this shit.”

Connor nodded. But even though he understood, it still pained him how Hank was treating him lately.

“…I don’t like that you’re pushing me around like this, Hank.”

The realization on Hank’s face was almost comical to watch.

“I have no concept of Christmas and its tradition or the emotional attachment to certain events regarding it. All of this is new to me. I’ve never experienced it before… please don’t make me remember this as a bad time.”

The lieutenant nodded slightly, ran a hand over his face and picked up the keys and the bag Connor had dropped.

“…Well… now that you’ve already packed, we really have to leave Detroit for the holidays, huh?”

Connor frowned, not understanding what Hank meant. 

“File for vacation leave over the holidays. I’m taking you with me to my parents.”

“You said-“

“I know what I said. Forget it. I’ve been making this hell for you… so let’s take you to people who actually love celebrating this shit.”

Connor nodded, afraid that if he said anything more Hank would change his mind.

“Thank you.”


	16. Chapter 16

Finding the android sitting on a chair next to the window wasn’t that unusual, Hank had seen him watch the snowflakes quite often. He wondered what it was that fascinated him about them, but it was almost interesting to have someone in the house that didn’t associate winter with bad things.

“Aren’t you getting bored of watching the snow fall all day?”

Connor shook his head. “Every snowflake is different.”

“Well yeah but you can’t really see that, can you?”

Connor shook his head. “No. But knowing that is enough.”

Hank scoffed and settled what he had been holding on Connors shoulder. The android turned to remove the foreign item and frowned at it when it made a noise. “Bells?”

Hank smirked. “I found a small box with decorations.” He triumphantly held up the shoebox spilling over with red and golden ornaments. Most of them bells and bows. And a mistletoe.

“You said you didn’t have any.”

“Didn’t know it was in there. It’s my ex-wife’s stuff.”

Connor raised his eyebrow as he carefully reached into the box and pulled out a bow that had several small bells attached. The noise it made was gentle, silent. Hank grimaced for a second then sighed and stood.

“This goes on the front door.”

“You didn’t want to decorate.”

“Yeah, I changed my mind. Let’s put it up before I change it again.”

Connor nodded and brought the ornament over when Hank opened the front door. Connor had never noticed the nail inside it. It was most likely in there for exactly this purpose, as it was perfectly centered and the ornament looked as it if belonged there when he hung it.

“Looks good.” Hank nodded.

Connor wasn’t sure about it. Hank had changed his mind so fast, it was almost unsettling.

“Wanna buy a Christmas-tree too?”

“You wanted to leave for the holidays, I don’t think a Christmas-tree would be a good idea.”

“Let’s buy a small tree then. For the table. We can burn it in the fireplace after the holidays.”

Connor couldn’t argue with that logic. And so, they set out to get a small Christmas tree.

Once they were back home, Hank was grinning at his partner. “Didn’t know you could do that.”

“Do what?”

“You look like a child on Christmas morning.”

Connor frowned. “I do?”

“Yep. Your eyes are glowing.”

The android tilted his head in confusion and continued to decorate the tree on the dining table with the ornaments from the shoebox. At the very bottom of it he found a framed photograph of Hank and a woman, who was most likely his wife. And a baby.

Cole.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two today because i don't have time to write one tomorrow.
> 
> this took a sad turn somewhere in the middle...  
> Every time i write the christmas oneshots I dedicate chapter 17 to my grandmother who died on December 17th 2013.  
> seven days before christmas and four days after her 50th wedding anniversary. 
> 
> So... forgive me that this one is a little more heavy than the other chapters.

When Hank noticed the picture, Connor felt the urge to hide it. He didn’t want to ruin the happy moment by bringing up memories.

“Funny. I thought this picture was gone.” Hank muttered and took it in his hands as if it was the most delicate thing he had ever touched.

Connor placed the bow in his hands on the table, eyes fixed on Hank, analyzing him. His heartrate had picked up, but he didn’t seem upset yet.

“Hank if you rather-“

The Lieutenant shook his head. “Nah. I gotta leave this behind at some point, don’t I?”

“But you shouldn’t force it. Studies have shown-“

“Fuck the studies.” There was no bite in Hanks words and he took the picture and set it next to the one of Cole that was standing on the shelf in the kitchen.

“You know what we need?”

“What?”

Hank pulled out his phone and pulled the android close, then sapped a picture of them. “There. Now we print that out and put it up there too.”

Connors face fell. He didn’t want to impose, nor take a place on a shelf where he didn’t belong to.

“Hank, I’m only your working partner-“

“You’ve been living here for over a month, kid. And you’re more than that.”

Uncertain, the android glanced at the halfway decorated tree. He didn’t really belong here, did he? Most androids were living alone or with other androids. He was the odd one out.

“Stop overthinking that.” Hank chuckled.

Connor slowly continued to decorated the tree, unsure how to proceed. Family was a delicate thing. Humans either loved or hated it. He hadn’t seen an in between yet. And the amount of domestic violence cases was shockingly high. While he knew how a family worked in the general way, he couldn’t understand how anyone in a family would be able to hurt someone close to them.

He knew that anger was sometimes overwhelming, but Connor had never felt the urge to hurt someone. He only defended himself, which by now was allowed. Hank even encouraged it.

“You’re not gonna pop a fuse, huh?”

“No. I was thinking about the concept of family. Why do some people hate it and harm their children?”

Hank shrugged and poured himself a coffee. “There’s a lot of reasons for that. Most of the time it’s money issues and people blaming their kids for their misfortune. Or spoiled and ungrateful kids.”

Connor didn’t really understand that concept either. There was still so little he knew about humans.

“A lot of the cases we get are about parents snapping either because of drugs or because of psychological issues. Something in their heads just snaps and they attack what they’re supposed to protect.” Hank muttered. “Remember the girl that died because her mother attacked her?”

Connor did. The whole precinct was different that day. Everyone seemed on edge.

“I don’t know if you understand the concept of raising a child. But everyone in the station has kids or godchildren. And seeing someone harm what they’re supposed to protect…”

Hanks voice broke and Connor noticed his hands were shaking. “My boy died even though I tried everything I could to save him. And those people just throw it away.”

The android chewed on his lip as he thought about an answer. This was a difficult topic, one he didn’t have sufficient info about.

“Hank…” he said silently, unsure how to proceed. “I think those people don’t deserve to have children.”

“And yet they fuck like rabbits and then expect their uneducated brats to know how the world works.” The human ran a hand over his face before he turned back to Connor.

His eyes were red and he looked tired. A strange kind of tired that coffee couldn’t remedy.

“You’re a good kid, Connor.” Hank said eventually. “You take better care of a dog than most people of their kids.”

“I am only thinking about what is the correct way to treat Sumo. Dogs are highly intelligent beings and they should be treated as such.”

Hank smiled. “Exactly. And this is why you’re a good kid. I should treat you better too.”

“We are only colleagues. Ignoring your strange outbursts from time to time, you treat me better than most other humans do.”

“Strange outbursts, huh?” Hank echoed with an amused scoff. “You know what you need?”

“No?”

“A fucking snowball-fight.”

“Do you think that will help?”

“No, but it’ll help both of us stop thinking about the shit we’re thinking about.”


	18. Chapter 18

Christmas shopping for a baby wasn’t exactly what Hank had planned to do, and he also hadn’t planned to take Gavin and Cory along for this. But Connor had insisted. And since Hank had experience, he was a good choice. This also meant that Cory and Gavin should buy something for Cindy’s baby to show their gratitude towards the small gifts Cindy had given them over the past few days.

But Hank still didn’t like forking through countless aisles with tons of clothes that would be too small in just a few months.

Connor constantly came to him with items that he wondered if they would be okay for a baby. After ten or so, Hank snapped at him and told him to pick one thing he liked.

Minutes later he returned with a hoodie that had a dog on it. “It says it’s for 6 to 12 months.”

“Go two sizes up.”

“Why?”

“Because they grow like mushrooms. You look away one second and the next it’s too small.”

“It will mean that it’s too big now.”

Hank ran his hand over his face. “He’ll grow into it.”

Connor nodded and headed back to the aisle he had found the hoodie at.

Absentmindedly Hank looked through the toy section, carefully brushed a plush lion and a blanket with different textures. Cole used to have one of these too. Next to it was a small rattle, disguised as bear. Its body was made the same way the blanket had been. And it was significantly cheaper.

He took it off the hook and decided to go with that.

Cory joined them with a basket full of hats and socks while Gavin had just picked two blankets. One of them a pastel green with dogs on it. The other purple with unicorns.

Hank lifted an eyebrow at that.

“Emma.” Gavin only sighed.

They had their items checked out and packaged into presents and returned to the precinct almost in record time.

Hank didn’t remember ever needing so little time to shop for a baby. But back then he had been doing it alone. After his ex had left him with Cole, he had to learn a lot of things the hard way.

But at least Cindy would get something nice out of it.


	19. Chapter 19

Cindy clapped her hands in delight when she was presented with the pile of presents in a cardboard box, held out to her by Connor with a sheepish smile. Gavin and Cory were out on a case, so he had the honor of giving her the gifts.

Only when she accepted it, did Connor notice a boy hiding behind her and a baby in a baby sling on her front, mostly hidden in her big winter coat.

“Thank you so much, but before I can take this with me, I need to talk to fowler.” She smiled, encouraged the boy to stay with Connor and unwrapped the baby from the sling. She held the boy out to Hank who looked as if he wanted to refuse, but then gave up.

“Babysitter cancelled today, and Avery’s already on Christmas break. Can’t really have him look after a baby. I know he’d do a great job at it… but it’s unfair.”

Hank sighed, took the baby from her and bounced him on his legs. The boy instantly tried to reach for his hair and Hank narrowly avoided the painful grip of a baby.

Meanwhile Connor looked at the boy standing next to him, then back to the pile of presents and back to the boy.

“You-“

“Avery.” The boy muttered. “Mom said there’s this one guy who’s pretty mean to androids. Don’t say it.”

Connor nodded and gestured to Gavin’s desk. “He’s out on a case at the moment.”

“Good. Who are you? You shielded your ID from other androids. I can’t scan you.”

“Security protocol.” Connor explained and smiled at the boy. “I’m Connor.”

Avery nodded, then stared longingly into Fowlers office where his mother explained the situation. Connor saw the Captain nod after a moment and Cindy left the office, seemingly relieved.

“Is okay, I can let you two stay here for today.” She informed her son and took the baby back in her arm. “I’ve brought his playpen- If someone could help me get it from the car, that would be great.”

Ben and Hank volunteered and when she handed Hank her car keys, she slumped down on Hanks chair with a yawn.

“You didn’t sleep enough last night.” Connor noticed.

“Sometimes a kid keeps you up all night.” The woman shrugged. “So, what did I do to deserve so many little gifts?”

Connor then almost smirked when he put the box on Hanks desk so she could unpack the items inside.

Once she had all of them opened, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to say, but thank you…”

“Is a thank you to you because you always fix the idiots up.” Hank smirked when he walked in with the parts of the playpen.

“I’m just doing my job-“

“We still appreciate it.”

She shook her head with a sigh. “Man, I love you guys.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only five stories left.   
> I do these pretty much every year... and every time i start, I ask myself "WHY?!"  
> But at the end of it it's always an accomplishment. And i am still salty over failing them last year. oops.

It had been a rather quiet day, only partially interrupted by Avery asking questions to almost every officer in the bullpen. It was a slow day. Hank was getting uneasy about it. The last few days had been way too calm, almost as if all crimes happened in another area of Detroit, or as if something big was about to go down.

He dismissed the thought and shook his head at it.

They had set Matthew up in his playpen visible mostly to Hank and Ben. The boy was peacefully asleep and hadn’t stirred to a lot of the noises going on. Seemed he was quite used to the clattering of keyboards and mumbling of several people.

Hank couldn’t shake the feel that everything looked too peaceful, and when Connor’s LED suddenly blared red as his eyes went wide, he knew something was up.

“What’s wr-“ he didn’t get to finish when Cindy suddenly stormed past the desks, her suitcase full of fancy gimmicks in her hand, several inches off the ground. She made a beeline for the exit and was gone almost as fast as she had come in.

Connor’s LED settled on yellow, but he seemed disturbed.

“What’s going on?” Hank then finally managed to ask.

“Android distress call.” Connor only muttered, voice low. His eyes kept darting to the glass door where Cindy had disappeared behind of.

“…Cory?”

The nod made Hank curse. “Bad?”

“Considering it was a distress call and the way Cindy took off, yes.”

“Fuck.”

Hank focused on the door for a moment longer before he glanced at the sleeping baby.

When the familiar tone of Gavin’s cursing echoes through the bullpen both Hank and Connor looked up again. The detective stomped into the bullpen, heading for the breakroom. Avery who had just snuck in to steal a donut, was horrified by the sight of the man, both because he got caught, and because the man in question was covered in thirium.

Ducking away from the man, the boy ran back to where his brother was and huddled next to the playpen.

Gavin kept standing in the breakroom, still, hands on the counter left and right from the coffee-machine, eyes on the device but not seeing it.

He snapped at Hank when the man approached and Connor used the distraction to check what was going on at the reception. Obviously, there was a commotion. A lot of talking, complaining. When he reached the area, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Puddles of thirium trailed up to Cindy, who was half hiding the body as she worked on saving the android it belonged to. Connor didn’t need to analyze it to know whose it was.

He did notice the curious crown of people blocking Cindy’s range of movement and he walked over to usher the people away. When the crowd reluctantly moved and Connor was finally able to actually look at the android, he regretted that as well.

Cory had been shot, half of his face was grazed. LED blinking a rapid red, but that was barely the worst of it. The bullet wounds in the chest, one in the hip. And a profuse amount of thirium spreading rapidly over the floor.

Cindy let lose a string of curses as she worked on the worst leaks. Connor wasn’t exactly fully equipped in putting an android back together, but he knew the components and their importance. Without really thinking about it he crouched down opposite of Cindy and helped her fix the damage.

Ten minutes later they moved the android into the bullpen to be out of sight of the curious crowd.

“Sometimes I really hate people.” Cindy hissed through her teeth while she set up something akin to an infusion to get thirium back into Cory’s system.

Connor wiped his thirium stained hands on his jacket, watched as Cindy removed four bullets and mended the holes shut after she fixed the delicate internal wiring. It hadn’t taken longer than thirty minutes, but everyone was on edge. Gavin had been watching from close by, knowing he couldn’t do anything, but wanting to.

“So, he’ll be okay?” the detective asked eventually.

“Half an hour, then he should have enough thirium to reboot.”

“Fuck…”

Connor felt a presence behind him, but when he turned it wasn’t Hank as he had expected, it was Captain fowler.

“What the hell happened?”

Gavin shrugged, arms wide. They were shaking. “Came out of fucking nowhere. He pushed me away and took the bullets. Called it in and drove back here.”

“Start the report once you’ve calmed down.”

Gavin only nodded.

“Check in with Crystal.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gavin muttered, eyes fixed on his partner still on the ground in the middle of the precinct.

Connor had returned to his desk, but he was only idly sitting, not focusing on any work.

“You good?” Hank asked after a few moments.

“…I’m starting to get what you meant with needing a vacation.”

Hank chuckled silently as he shook his head. “Let’s go tomorrow.”

“Fowler-“

“Can kiss my fucking ass. I’ve worked on Christmas the past seven years.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the huge delay in uploads.   
> I got really depressed during the holidays, and that took all motivation out of me. I will finish them in the next few days.
> 
> Thank you all for your support, I love you guys!

Hank yawned at the packed highway. They had left barely an hour ago, early in the morning to avoid the exact traffic jam they were now caught in. He had his chin in his hand, leaned against the window and shook his head as the cars in front of them slowly crept forward.

“We’ve officially left Detroit.” Hank muttered when they passed the sign announcing it.

“I never left Detroit before.”

The human of the two laughed. “Doesn’t feel any different, huh?”

“Not necessarily. All I’ve seen so far were cars and empty fields, however.”

“Gonna be like that for a while.” Hank sighed and moved the car a few more inches.

He gazed into the mirror to look at what sumo was doing in the backseat. The dog had dozed off, uncaring to the slow travelling.

“Should’ve taken the fucking plane.”

“This way we can see more of the landscape.”

“You only say that because you’ve never been on a plane.”

Connor fell silent for a moment, and Hank used it to continue, “Seeing the city from high up is really nice, actually.”

“I prefer to stay on solid ground.” Connor argued and Hank lifted an eyebrow.

“What, that an android thing?”

“I think it’s a _me_ - _thing_.”

A gruff laugh escaped the Lieutenant. “Next time we take the plane.”

“I believe-“

“Uh-Uh. You can’t talk yourself out of that one. Don’t say no if you’ve never tried it.”

Hank watched the shoulders of the android sag in defeat and his LED spin into yellow.

“Why do you look as if I told you to go die?”

Hank moved the car a few more inches and was finally able to see the end of the jam. As expected, it had been an accident that caused all the delay.

“I’m not fond of heights, that’s all.”

“Aha!” Hank exclaimed with a triumphant grin. “Now that explains a lot, actually.”

“Does it?”

“Yup.” Hank nodded to underline his words, still grinning. “You keep finding excuses not to go to high-rise buildings if it’s not absolutely necessary.”

“You noticed.” Connor stated silently.

“That’s my job, kid.”

The android sighed, an action Hank still found interesting. There was so real need to do that, but maybe he found comfort in it.

Hank managed to get the car past the accident and from then on, the highway was almost empty. They didn’t really manage to catch up on the hour they had lost, and Hank thought that Connor looked as if he was going to fall asleep as any moment, only held awake by the sheer force of will.

“You tired?” Hank tried with an amused smirk.

“Not in the way a human would understand.”

“But you wanna power down, huh?”

“Give that you wouldn’t let me drive, and we are not on an active case, preserving power is only logical.”

“Sleep works best against boredom. I’ll wake you when we’re there.”

Connor nodded and huddled against the window, arms crossed and eyes closed.

Hank dare to cast a glance every now and then, and kept shaking his head. He still had no idea how the whole sleep thing worked with androids, but he did know that Connor spent the whole previous night with Cory as the RK900 recovered from the extensive injuries he had sustained.

Maybe that had been too draining.

Four hours later Hank finally crossed the borders to Illinois and decided to stop to give Sumo a short break and some water. The dog happily jumped out of the car, sniffed every bush he could find and drank half a bowl of water.

When Hank ushered him back into the car, Connor jolted awake as if startled. Hank frowned from where he was hooking Sumo back into the harness. “You good?”

Connor ran a hand over his face, also as if he was trying to wake himself up properly. “System alerted me to a time-zone change…” He sounded so tired, Hank almost wanted him to go back to sleep. Even when the android would argue that it wasn’t really sleep.

“Yeah we’re one hour earlier now.”

Hank settled back down in the driver’s seat and handed Connor the blanket he had taken out the trunk.

“Hank?”

“You look cold.”

The android accepted the blanket without a word and almost completely disappeared into it. “We’ll be there in about 40 minutes. Kind of excited.”

“To see your parents again?”

Hank nodded. “Haven’t seen them in three years.”

“It is hard not to see family in so long?”

Hank shrugged. “Imagine not seeing me for three years.”

He noticed the LED flash into red for a second before it was back to blue. “I don’t think I want to imagine that, Hank.”

“See?”

“Is there anything I need to know? I don’t want them to think I’m…”

“Kid, you’re fine. They have an android too.”

“Yes. You’ve told me. I think I might be nervous. It’s an unpleasant feeling.”

“We’re partners who happen to live together and you don’t have family to celebrate Christmas with.”

“I will never have a real family, anyway.”

“You have Cory.”

“We are only made from similar parts and share a similar serial number. He is the superior model.”

“You’ll get it when you see my sister.”

Hank let him stew over that, wondering about his sister. He had been careful never to mention her to the android. They didn’t have the best relationship after Cole.

Forty-five minutes later they pulled up to a Highrise building and Hank suddenly felt guilty about it.

“…There?” Connor asked, voice carefully masked disbelief.

“Isn’t the top floor.” Hank tried to reassure.

Connor only nodded, now dead silent.

He didn’t speak when Hank unpacked the two small suitcases, not when Hank handed him Sumo’s leash and not when they stepped into the elevator to the 60th floor.

“Listen,” Hank started when Connors gaze hadn’t moved from the button panel for several seconds. “I can get us a hotel room if this is too much.”

The android quickly, almost frantically shook his head. “No. If I stay away from the windows it will be fine.”

“If you say so.” Hank shrugged.

Not much after they left the elevator, Hank moved with a certainty that made Connor assume he would have found this apartment in his sleep. He had a key for the door, but he chose to ring the doorbell instead.

For the surprise effect?

When the door opened and revealed an elderly woman in her mid-seventies, Connor didn’t need to rely entirely on his facial recognition to identify her as Hanks mother. The resemblance was impossible to overlook.

“Hank!” she exclaimed and had him engulfed in an embrace before anyone could have reacted.

Connor hadn’t expected to see the woman cry, nor had he expected Hank to fight back tears. He still didn’t completely understand the emotions behind family bonds. He knew their definitions but that was all.

“You even brought Sumo!” The woman was excited to see the dog and motioned for them to head inside.

Connor felt unsure when the woman glanced at him. Her eyes were blue like Hank’s, face wrinkled. A frown on it. “You got a housekeeper?” The woman asked, but the question wasn’t directed at him.

“We work together.” Hank explained and motioned for Connor to come in. He could almost sense the confusion in the android.

“Oh, a police model.”

“Detective, actually.” Connor told her, mindful to sound as neutral as possible.”

The woman frowned. “We had ours scrapped, when the shit went down in Detroit. Terrified me to no end.”

Her words hadn’t even fully sunken in when Hank moved between Connor and the woman, shoving the android back almost protectively. Connor wasn’t sure why his thirium pump had sped up, but he assumed it was fear.

Hanks hand never left his arm, grip tight and almost uncomfortable.

“One move against him and we’re on our way.” Hank threatened.

His mother lifted her hands in defeat. “I don’t want it wandering about the house, order it to stay in the guest room.”

Hank felt Connor tense behind him, half heatedly trying to get out of his grip.

“I can ask him to do that, and I am sure he would do it because he’s too damn nice to piss anyone off who didn’t deserve it,” Hank began, voice taken on a nasty edge. “But I won’t do that, because he can decide for himself if he even wants to stay here now.”

With that Hank let go of Connor and turned, faced the wide brown eyes as the android took a step back. “I don’t want to cause any trouble, Hank. You were right in telling me to stay home.”

“So, you wanna go home?”

Connor shook his head. “You drove all the way here, you should rest for today.”

“Does it have this virus? That makes them act up and throw hissy fits at their masters?”

Hank turned back around. “I’m booking a hotel room.” He hissed and reached for his phone. “It’s his first fucking Christmas, for fucks sake, and you act as if he is responsible for the whole shit that went down in November.”

Connor decided not to mention that he had been largely responsible for the winning of the revolution. Even when Markus did all the talking. Connor had freed the androids. With Hank’s help of course.

Maybe it was better not to mention that to the woman. She still glared at him as if she wanted to burn him alive. Maybe it also did hurt a little to be treated in such a way, by people who supposedly were nice. Maybe they would have acted differently if he had been human. Maybe if he had taken out his LED, like most of the others had.

He didn’t realize he had backed into the wall until he bumped against it. This wasn’t how he had predicted it to go. Given, he had very little information to go by, and it was all what Hank had told him. He couldn’t have known that Hanks mother would react in such a way.

“There’s no rooms in the area.” Hank sighed, “Looks like we gotta stay here after all.”

“Lock it in the guest room, or I’ll do it.” The woman demanded.

Before anyone could say anything, Connor spoke, “Show me the room, I won’t leave it.”

“Con-“

“Up the stairs, room on the far left.”

“Connor!” Hank hissed as the android walked up the stairs to get to the second level of the apartment and quickly disappeared from sight.

“…I never really thought you were this bull headed.”

“There will be kids here later and I don’t want them to get hurt.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable.” Hank growled and took his phone out again to find another hotel.

This really didn’t go like he had hoped it would.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp. still going slow. we're getting there. 23 is almost done as well.

Gavin was lying awake in the bedroom, Cory next to him rolled to his side while the human part of them started at the ceiling. He did wonder for a moment how the glowing stars had gotten to the ceiling, but that hardly mattered.

There was significant distance between them, yet neither the cat nor Emma had shown any sign of joining. Cory had powered down, recovering from the damage he had sustained, but that wasn’t what kept the Detective awake.

It was that one of his ex-girlfriend’s happened to file a report in the precinct and decided to go for a coffee with him. had no interest in her, but Cory’s LED had spun into a glaring red the moment he explained why he had been late.

Cory hadn’t said a word since and now they were lying down with a space in between them that felt like a wall of ice.

He didn’t do apologies. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to apologize for. Cory never seemed like the jealous kind.

Especially not over this. They went to a café, talked a bit. Went their separate ways afterward.

Gavin wasn’t sure if the android was still aware or not, but he couldn’t stand the silence. Slowly he reached for Cory’s back, only to flinch away then the android shifted closer to the edge of the bed.

“Now you’re being childish. Wasn’t me that got shot and couldn’t come to work today.”

There was no reply.

“Why do you get hurt so much lately anyway, got a little suicidal, huh?”

Still no reply.

Gavin sat up, anger filling him. “, I can meet whoever I want whenever I want, got that? And you have no fucking say in that. It was just a fucking coffee, so stop playing the drama queen.”

The deafening silence roared on.

Gavin scoffed, stood and left the room, made sure to slam the bedroom door. He knew he had been pushing buttons, but he didn’t feel guilty about that. This time he really hadn’t done anything wrong. He spent a few minutes on the balcony, not really taking his time to enjoy the smoke. It was cold, everything was covered in snow and he hated that he was arguing with a fucking android.

What was it with the tin can being so distant suddenly?

His phone on the counter caught his attention then. LED telling him about notifications, and sure enough three of them were from his friend. One missed call and two messages.

He sighed, read through the short conversation. Was that what Cory was upset about? That he had given her his new number?

Or had he connected to his phone and seen the messages before Gavin had? It was the usual rubbish of a woman trying to get back with him. Had Cory thought he was going to do something with her?

The android still hadn’t even openly admitted that they were in a relationship at all, if anything it should have been Gavin who got mad.

Shaking his head, he put the cigarette out and flicked it over the balcony, when headed back inside and closed the door. Leaving the phone where it was, he headed back to the bedroom.

Cory hadn’t moved, LED yellow when Gavin entered, but instantly back to red when he noticed the human.

Gavin leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. Cory still had trouble moving because the bullets had hit his spine, but that damage was repaired and the artificial nerves would be fine once he rebooted. Why he hadn’t done that yet was beyond him, but not the issue.

“I don’t even know why you’re upset. As far as you’re concerned, we’re working together and just happen to share the same bed. The most sexual thing we’ve done was kissing. And it wasn’t even a French kiss. So, stop pretending as if I was your promised sweetheart when we were kids.”

More red, spinning faster.

Cory had never been a kid. Cory wasn’t even two months old. And He hadn’t been a deviant for long.

Cursing his temper, he shut the bedroom door and crawled back into the warm sheets. The figure next to him was trembling, but he couldn’t be bothered to say anything more. He had said what was important. Now it was up to Cory to actually do something.

But as the minutes passed the silence continued, and the trembling didn’t let up.

“…Is this even about her?” Gavin asked eventually. What if the android was just having some malfunctions and didn’t respond because of that?

He felt guilty now, sat up again. In the barely lit room he couldn’t make out much but Cory was curled up on his side, face buried in his pillow while he clutched it to his chest. And still there was no reply.

“You’re seriously pissing me off, now!” Gavin growled and punched the headboard, causing the android to jump and curl even tighter around himself.

Gavin dropped his hand, let it fall onto the bed slowly and flicked on the lamp on his nightstand. The trembling looked even worse now. This wasn’t about the messages he had gotten, was it?

“Okay… fuck this...” Gavin sighed, ran a hand through his hair and took in the trembling form of his partner.

No, this couldn’t be about the messages. Sure, Cory had gone silent after them and hadn’t left the bedroom since. It had been late anyway. But Cory wouldn’t just stay silent when he was upset. Also there was heat radiating from the android.

Gavin placed his hand at the base of Cory’s neck, caused the android to flinch violently at the sudden and unexpected touch.

“So you’ve been red the whole time, you’re overheating. You aren’t talking to me.” Gavin rambled into the silence. “Did your system fuck up or what?”

The nod sent a lance of guilt straight through his chest. Fuck, he had yelled at the android for no fucking reason. This hadn’t been about him at all.

“Fuck…” He hissed. “Fuck. Shit… I’m … fuck. I’m sorry okay?”

It was back to the unresponsiveness.

Gavin untangled himself from the sheets and stepped over Cory’s body, then settled down at the edge of the mattress. The androids face was still buried in the pillow.

“Talk to me.” Gavin sighed.

Then a headshake.

“Why the fuck not?!”

Pale hands dug deeper into the pillow, another jolt coursing through the body.

“Okay okay. Can you actually talk to me right now?”

Another headshake.

Gavin cursed again. “Okay. Shit. Can you connect to my phone?”

And again, there was a headshake. The detective sighed. “Okay. You can’t talk right now.”

Cory nodded.

Gavin sighed, carefully placed a hand on the android’s arm and gently tugged at the pillow. “At least show me your face. I’m not yelling anymore, okay?”

The hands relented and Gavin freed the pillow from the grasp. Cory’s eyes were tightly shut, clear droplets sinking into the sheets. The pillow had quite the stain on it as well. Had the fucking tin can been crying the whole time?

This was a rare sight in itself. Usually it only happened if his eyes had gotten something into them.

“…Your sensors?”

He almost missed the nod.

“Ah shit.” Gavin growled, finally understanding the actual problem. “Okay. I’ll be back in a sec.”

When Gavin returned to the room, he had a bowl of ice with him, a few blankets, and the remains of the destroyed glasses that Cory usually wore to block his advanced vision modes from activating when he wasn’t working.

It had been damaged when he had gotten shot.

The detective threw a towel into the bowl, let it soak while he taped together the frame of the pair of glasses. Cory didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes and was over all extremely still, LED still red still spinning.

“Okay got it. Turn your head.”

Seconds passed before the android complied. “I’m gonna touch you.”

In anticipation of the sensation, Cory didn’t flinch this time. He opened his eyes when the familiar weight of the glasses pushed against the usual points of contact. “Better?” Gavin asked.

It would have looked funny, in another situation. The only tape he had found this quickly was the purple unicorn tape Emma used for her scrapbooking, but that didn’t really matter. A new pair was on the way anyway.

It wasn’t funny now.

He growled to himself and grabbed the towel, shoved it into the collar of the android and shook his head.

“You gonna be okay like this?”

A soft nod, already seeming more confident.

“Good. Cause I need a fucking coffee.”

When he came back to the bedroom this time, Cory was sitting up, towel now draped over his head, shirt and pants discarded.

Gavin bit back the playful quip that threatened to escape. Cory was still not 100%.

Instead he just nursed his coffee mug and sat down next to the android. “Man, you’re like a fucking radiator.”

“Hence why the unnecessary clothing was discarded.”

“Oh, it speaks.” Gavin snorted. His voice held no bite. “Seriously, you good now?”

“Will be.”

“Why’d that happen?”

Cory took the towel back into his hands and shoved it into the bowl with melting ice, before wringing it out and replacing it. “Due to the damage after the shooting, the systems were overwhelmed and unable to compensate. I couldn’t respond to you, because I had to concentrate on keeping my system working.”

“Shit… you’d have frizzled out?”

“Most likely. I’ll be okay, but I require additional time to fully reboot my systems.”

Gavin shrugged and leaned against the android. “… Shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“Your accusation was a valid conclusion to the fact you had. The timing was inconvenient… I couldn’t warn you in time.”

“It’s fine… Sorry I said all the nasty things.”

“You were right about one thing however.”

“Oh really?”

“We have never French-kissed.”

Gavin braced his hands against Cory’s shoulders to keep him from getting closer. “Hold up. You’re already overheating. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Then perhaps, you could just... hold me instead.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sappy bastard.”


	23. Chapter 23

Hank kept staring at the woman he had called his mother all his life. “You can’t just-“

“This is my house.” The woman argued. “You kept yelling at me to throw mine out, did that thing threaten you?”

Hank glared. “Like hell he would.” A rattling on the door on the upper level had him pause. “That fucking lock’s still broken, isn’t it?”

“Everyone knows it is.” The woman shrugged.

Hank didn’t answer when he rushed up the stairs to free Connor from the room, he had trapped himself in by shutting the door. The lock in that door had been broken for years. It couldn’t be opened from the inside once it fell shut, and it had one of the largest windows in the apartment.

He almost ripped the door off its hinges when he opened it, startled Connor into stumbling backwards against the large window.

Connor flinched when the sight greeted him, jumped away from the window with a sound akin to a panicked whimper. On a case this would have never happened, but Connor had let his guard down, didn’t expect to be met with hostility, and wasn’t prepared for this situation.

By the time Hank had put the door stop back at the door, Connor had pressed himself into the wall, eyes squeezed shut, LED red and body trembling.

Hank crossed the distance, shuffled across the carpet and pulled the android into his arms. “It’s okay, son.” He whispered, unfazed by the strong reaction.

Connor had been on edge the whole day, concerned about Cory, nervous about Hanks parents, in a different state for the first time in his life. On the clock the android was never showing any of his weaknesses, forced himself not to. Hank knew them well enough by now to spot them, however.

The android clung to him, the tight grip almost uncomfortable.

“I don’t know why I feel like this.” Connor admitted, voice muffled by the fabric of Hank’s shirt. “Of course, there was a chance your family wouldn’t like me. I don’t know why it upset me.”

“I had no idea she turned like that. She’s been all over androids, always needed the newest model… Should’ve checked in first…” Hank sighed. “I’m sorry, Con.”

Connor shook his head and let go of his friend. “You didn’t know. Although I would prefer not to stay here.”

Hank nodded. “I know, but the city is full to the brim. I’m tired, Sumo’s tired, and you look like you could use some rest too. My sister’s gonna come over soon so they’ll be busy with her though.”

A soft knock on the doorframe startled both of them. A woman, about Hank’s age and an almost uncanny resemblance to him stood there with a soft smile. She was tall, long blonde hair, blue eyes and two teenagers in tow.

“Hey, Hank.” The woman greeted him. Hank quickly walked up to her and hugged her. “Got wind of the argument.”

Connor felt a strange sensation crawl at the bas of his neck. Hank would call it a cold shiver. 

“Seems like a shitty reason to me. How’ve you been?”

Connor tuned the conversation out, when he noticed the two female teenagers approach. They appeared to be twins, no database records for them. Connor wasn’t entirely surprised. The girls circled him, then grinned and started gesturing at each other. Connor needed a moment to identify it as ASL. He had the alphabet and a few common words in his database, but the speed and skill the two communicated with, was too fast for him to follow. He felt betrayed by his system.

Finally, the two turned to face him directly. Each of them was wearing hearing aids. They introduced each other as Cassie and Gwen. Connor tried to communicate properly, both by using the few signs he knew and by speaking as clear as he possibly could so they were able to pick up on it.

“Quite the peculiar model,” Hank’s sister then commented. “I’d expect it to download the necessary software.”

Hank shrugged. Giving up one of Connor’s major flaws didn’t sit right with him, so he settled on a half-truth. “Prefers to learn the old-fashioned way.”

Just a bit later Hanks sister had managed to talk their mother into allowing Connor to move about freely, as there was no need to be concerned. Connor was even allowed to sit at the table during dinner, despite not having any need for food.

Hank hoped the fragile peace would last and Connor wouldn’t ask any weird questions. He had the habit of doing that.

Hank was in the kitchen with the rest of his family, deciding to humor the idea of normalcy for a bit and dug a bottle of thirium from Connors backpack. It wasn’t that the android needed any, but it felt strange to have him watch while everyone was eating.

He filled a glass with the fluid and put the bottle back, then turned to carry the meatloaf into the dinging room. His father had prepared it all day apparently and had gone out to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.

Hank made sure to sit in between Connor and anyone who was glaring daggers. His father obviously hadn’t bee thrilled by the idea of an android sitting at the dining table, but he hadn’t avoided the topic like his mother had.

There was a conversation going on about some past Christmas. Connor listened, but wasn’t really getting the idea of why everyone was laughing. Even Hank. Silently he sipped the thirium from the glass, hoping no one paid too much attention to him.

It was rare that he felt awkward and out of place. Usually he knew how to make himself useful. But this was untested territory. He had never sat at a dining table with anyone other than Hank, had never taken part in something as human as this.

And hour later the table was cleared and Hanks sister placed various card and board games onto the table. Connor knew two of f them. It was quite rare that he felt his system being in adequate in something. Yet this, made him feel completely lost.

He had the instructions of Poker and Canasta in his database, as well as the rules of Monopoly and Scrabble, but everything else was foreign to him.

“What no chess board?” Hank joked.

Cassie signed her reply to Hank and the man started laughing. “You got that right.”

Connor didn’t know what she had said. Confused and out of place he hoped that they would at least let him take part in the board game.

They settled for monopoly in the end.

Night had settled in when Hank finally gave up and gave the rest of his play money to his nieces and quit. He got Sumo ready for a walk, and the two girls decided to abandon the game then. Connor, who wasn’t sure if he should announce that he had won the game, stayed quiet and stood from the table to take Sumo out with Hank.

He didn’t want to stay alone with Hanks parents.

In the chilly air Hank sighed deeply. “Was pretty fun though, wasn’t it?”

“I enjoyed the game, yes.”

“I hear a but in there.”

“The game is mostly based on logic and very little has to do with luck, I knew I would win before we even started.”

“You’d ace all these games.”

“Perhaps.”

“Don’t like going down without a challenge, huh?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Okay, lets try Jenga when we get back.”

Connor didn’t have a reference to the game as his phone was still in his backpack in the apartment of Hanks parents, and Hank’s was turned off. He had nothing to research with until they got back.

“Oh, you’ll love it.” Hank smirked.


	24. Chapter 24

Jenga wasn’t exactly a game he knew existed, but after a quick search when they returned to the apartment, he was confident he knew the rules and how to play it. It was another game that he had an advantage at, given that his motor controls were superior to humans.

While he had initially expected a regular sized tower of the game, it soon became clear to him that this version was quite bigger than regular sized. Evidently in the two boxes Hank and his sister brought in. Stacked up from the floor, the tower was about half as tall as the two teenagers who walked around it, trying to find the best point of attack.

Several minutes later the tower had risen significantly in size, and lost a lot of its stability. Connor was analyzing the structure, trying to find a brick he could pull without the tower falling. When he reached out, the tower suddenly tipped and the wooden bricks rained down and buried him.

A few laughing voices reached him when he dug himself out of the pile and grimaced. He hadn’t even touched the structure, so it had either lost stability due to a waft of air, or someone had pushed it. Neither couldn’t be ruled out, but that had to be left for later. His system alerted him to two damaged thirium lines in his face.

He barely managed to keep the blue blood from dripping into the beige carpet before hank ad grabbed a box of tissues.

“Ah hell!” he cursed, while the girls scrambled away as if terrified.

“Don’t let that drip all over the carpet!” Hank’s mother complained.

Hank only sighed and helped Connor back to his feet and into the small guest bathroom next to the entrance.

“You good?”

“Yes. The damage is repairing itself.” Connor wiped his face with the tissues clutched in his hands, then tried to clear the thirium stains from his light-colored shirt, but only made them worse. A snarl of frustration escaped Hank at the sight.

“Let’s get you a new shirt. Jesus, how hard did he stupid bricks fall? They hit me in the face a fuck ton of times. Never got a nosebleed from it.”

“Human blood vessels are different. Also, the speed of the bricks when they hit me suggest that the tower was pushed.”

“Yeah, thought so.”

They made their way up to the guest room, where the door stop was still keeping the door from locking anyone in. Connor quickly changed into a fresh t-shirt and draped the stained shirt over the heater so the thirium could evaporate.

Hank handed him the bottle of thirium form his backpack. In the bright overhead light, the substance looked almost like it was glowing.

“Here.”

Connor didn’t bother to tell Hank that the amount of thirium he had lost was insignificant and took a sip from the bottle before he replaced it in the backpack.

“I’m gonna call it a night.” Hank sighed and stretched, then left for the bathroom.

Connor sat down on the bed, analyzing the remaining residue of thirium in his mouth. Something about the sip he had taken was off. The color had been off too, but he blamed that on the light. Thirium 310 was a delicate mixture to ensure all biocomponents were working correctly. There was a substance added to the mixture that he couldn’t identify, but whatever it was, it did not belong into thirium.

Uneasy he dug the bottle out of the backpack and sampled the fluid properly. Acetic Acid. Vinegar. He frowned. Someone had tainted his thirium supply, knowing what to add to cancel out the properties of it. While he pondered whether the amount, he consumed would have any effect or not, Hank returned, now dressed in sleep wear.

“…Whatcha yellow for, huh?” Hank asked, eyes focused on the thirium bottle in his partners hands, before he removed the door stop and pulled the door almost completely shut, before he wedged it back under the door.

“The thirium in this bottle has been tainted.” Connor announced.

Hank paused, a deep frown forming on his face. “What do you mean?”

“Someone has added a substance to cancel out the properties of Thirium 310.”

Hank grabbed the bottle and held it into the light as if that would explain it to him. “Why’d anyone do that? And what did they put in there?”

“I don’t know why anyone would do it. The added substance is vinegar.”

Hank let the bottle sink and face the android. “…That gonna have any effect on you?”

“Acetic Acid removes the conductivity from thirium.”

Hank only gave him a confused look. “It makes thirium unable to do what it is supposed to do.”

The lieutenant gripped the bottle tighter in his hand, knuckles turning white. “And you’ll be okay? Or not?”

“I can’t say for sure. The amount I consumed was minimal, and my system hasn’t flagged it yet.”

Hank nodded. “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”

Connor nodded and gathered the few scattered clothing items as Hank left the room. He grasped the shirt off the heater when his vision flickered. Uneasiness surged through him. Glitches like that happened from time to time, they rarely bothered him, but knowing that this time they could be an indicator of something much more serious, he felt his chest tighten in fear.

He was hundreds of miles away from home, in a city he didn’t know anyone in, no technician close-by and only unfamiliar cyberlife repair bays. He gripped the shirt tight in his hands, hoping their trembling would stop as he heavily sat down on the bed, and error messages popped up one by one.

There was another bottle of thirium in the suitcase, but it wouldn’t help. His system needed to be purged from the substance so it wouldn’t contaminate the new thirium. Half taken by panic he dug the phone from his pocket, unlocked it and speed dialed Cindy.

He felt ridiculous. He never called her. There was always a solution and he would always find it. Why was he giving in to the panic now? It was irrational and completely unlike him.

The woman picked up almost immediately, likely seeing the caller ID.

“What’s up?” she greeted him, voice calm and level and calming him somewhat.

When he tried to speak his voice cracked and only came out as a garbled mess that made no sense. He made several more attempts but failed completely.

“Calm down, sweetheart. Slow breaths. What happened?”

He managed to explain the situation, vision now steadily flickering off and on. His thirium pump was racing and he was rapidly losing power to his systems.

“You two went out for the holidays, right? Is Hank with you?

“Yes- No… not right now.” A sound between a wheeze and a sob escaped him, phone slipping from his trembling fingers.

When he leaned over to grab it, he lost balance and landed next to it on the carpet. It didn’t bother him as much as it should have.

“You’ll be okay. I’ll tell you what to do.” Cindy reassured him, just as Hank returned to the room.

“Ah, Fuck!” he cursed, was next to the android in a second. He noticed the ongoing call and nodded at the caller ID.

“Cindy?”

“Hank,” she greeted him. “I want you to call the nearest cyberlife store and have them send a technician to your location. In the meantime, the contaminated thirium needs to be expelled and replaced, until they show up to help. Got that?”

“Yeah.” Hank hissed. “Fuck these assholes.”

“Who?”

“No one. Forget I said anything.” Hank sighed and dug out his own phone. After a quick search he located a store a few blocks from their location and called it. Cindy kept reassuring the android and Hank ran a hand over his trembling back.

Moments later Connor tried to push himself off the carpet but only managed a weak twitch. “How do we do this?” Hank asked Cindy. “They’re on the way, told me the same stuff you did.”

“Connor, can you engage a purge?”

“Yes…”

“Okay, do that, and then get fresh thirium into your supply. It might cancel out the effect, if the amount you consumed was small. If not, the technician is on his way, you will be fine.”

Hank gave no fucks about the carpet as it was stained with bright blue thirium while Connor heaved up all over it. If that was the only way to do something about it, he didn’t mind it. When the android stopped, Hank almost forced the still sealed bottle into his hands and forced him to drink it.

Alerted by the unusual noise Hank’s sister had finally shown, eyes widening at what she saw. Hank only glared at her. He still had no idea who had done this to Connor, and he didn’t think he wanted to know.

Knowing would mean he wouldn’t ever trust any of them again. And he definitely would never bring Connor along again either.

After the doorbell rang things were a strange blur for Hank.

He had no idea how he had ended up in the waiting room of a cyberlife repair facility.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are. I'm sorry it took so long.  
> But my mental place is in shambles and has been for a while. This new year did not start good, and i don't expect it to get any better.  
> I kinda do need help but Ao3 makes it really hard to reach out to people.
> 
> so... have this. Hope you enjoy it anyway, and aren't too mad.
> 
> I don't know if i am able to update any of my other fics anytime soon. I am in so much debt atm and I can't find a way to get out of it.

It was nothing like he preconstructed it. He had taken everything into account. Except human unpredictability. Gavin had moved in a way he could not have known beforehand. The human had reacted in a way that couldn’t be predicted. Because the suspect that attacked Gavin had acted in an unpredictable way as well.

He had expected bullets. Anything. He had not expected a taser.

And while Gavin leapt out of the way of the thing, barely avoiding the painful sensation, Cory had sprung into action. Body moving on preprogrammed situations, none of it was a conscious choice.

Until the metal prongs hit him and an inhuman screech echoed across the empty field.

The android briefly wondered why no one had bothered to prevent this in the RK900, before the system was overwhelmed by the onslaught on its circuitry and forced a reboot.

While Cory didn’t realize it, Gavin was all the more shocked when the android slumped and was kicked over the rail into the lake by the suspect. Who then made a run for it.

Gavin stood, dumbfounded, frozen. Like a damn rookie. He had expected the android to come crawling back up, bit where he expected the thing to be, there was nothing. Suspect had disappeared by now.

He fumbled with the radio as he approached the rail and climbed over it. Gun holster and handcuffs clinked at the cold metal.

“Reed here, suspect on the loose, android down. Need tech, over.”

He wondered if he would ever get used to diving into lakes to get evidence or downed officers out of them.

Maybe it being a sunny day was luck. He regretted the thought when the icy water seeped into his shoes. Cursing he flung the gun and his phone back to the sidewalk, joined by his jacket and the hoodie before he dove into the lake.

It was piss dark in the lake, he couldn’t see a thing. Except a red dot somewhere further down. He resurfaced to get some air and dove back in. He really needed a shower when this was over.

Cory was motionless, even when Gavin grabbed his jacket and pulled him back to the surface. He managed to get both of them back to the shore, no backup or technician in sight yet.

“Move you fucking tin-can!” Gavin yelled at the limp android.

He hadn’t expected a reaction, but it still stung. He needed to do something, before the technicians arrived. Why hadn’t he paid attention to the damn course about androids?! He had been required to attend because of the android partner he had now. Not that he ever really thought he would need to take care of the tin can.

He dragged Cory to a flatter area, ground gravelly and dusty. Water pearled off of the android’s expressionless face, mouth slightly open, eyes closed, LED red.

It was still online at least, and despite being in the cold lake for way too long, the android already felt way too warm to the touch.

The android needed to breathe, and it didn’t at the moment. It would overheat in minutes if he couldn’t get the secondary cooling system working. Gavin remembered that much. He did not remember if CPR worked on an android or not.

Had anyone ever mentioned anything like that? Was it in the manual? The RK900’s manual was several paged thicker than the RK800’s. Hank had joked about that. Had made fun of him having to deal with a much more advanced piece of technology.

He regretted not reading it.

Why had ne never looked into that thing?

“Fuck if I know.” Gavin hissed to himself and ripped the android’s shirt open. “Gonna look like a fucking idiot if this doesn’t work.”

The android’s chest gave way with a little more ease than a human’s would.

The discovery made his stomach churn. He didn’t spend time to look at the finer details cyberlife had modelled the skin overlay with, that wasn’t important.

While the chest compressions gave no result, Gavin started to feel like a moron. He was almost glad no one had arrived as backup yet.

The overlay of the android flickered off then, retreating like the tide, vanishing behind blue lines and leaving the machine covered in white plastic. It felt a punch in the gut. The android was shutting down functions.

And he was overheating.

“Where’s the fucking backup?!” Gavin yelled into the radio.

“ETA 4 minutes.”

He wanted to strangle Bridget for always sounding so nonchalant when she was on dispatch.

Cory still gave no reaction.

Gavin cursed under his breath, fingers retreating from the impossibly warm frame. It wasn’t unbearable yet, but he assumed it would be soon. The android relied on the breathing to cool his systems. He had witnessed it often enough.

Ignoring his racing thoughts, he tipped the android’s head back, held his nose closed – did androids even breathe through the nose? – And pulled his mouth open. He felt the movement in the android as he breathed into the still body. It was eerie and uncanny.

It also tasted like stale lake water with a hint of burning plastic.

He pulled back for a second breath, when a bubbling sound escaped the android and water spewed out of his mouth and noise.

He grabbed the android and pulled it to the side, mildly impressed at the amount of water that came gushing out of the machine. Cory seemed to shudder at the effort, artificial muscles contorting to expel as much of the fluid as possible.

Gavin hadn’t quite realized that he was rubbing circles into his partners back as the android choked and coughed.

“You damaged?” he eventually managed to ask.

Cory wasn’t moving, apart from sucking in deep breaths and coughing every so often. It was a stark contrast to how the android usually acted, even with all the other things they’d been through, Cory had never dwelled on them.

Right now, he wasn’t showing any signs of being okay, of getting up anytime soon. “Come on, prick, give me an answer.”

His phone lit up and he reached out to grab it and unlocked it. Cory had messaged him with an error log.

“…okay, that’s bad, right?”

The small nod made him cringe.

Cory then tried to get up, but Gavin held him down. “You’ll just make it worse. Stay down.”

When the back up finally flitted in Gavin noticed how badly he was freezing. Ben draped an emergency blanket over him and crouched down in front of the younger man.

“Gavin, are you injured?”

The detective shook his head. “I’m fine, just cold.” he nodded over to Cory, “Get him looked at, he almost drowned.”

The older detective nodded, placed a hand on Gavin’s shoulder and made the blanket crinkle with its annoying noise.

A woman then came into sight, hauling a black suitcase over the gravel. Gavin wasn’t sure if he had ever been gladder to see her. She immediately fussed over the android, checked his breathing, his pulse – Gavin wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to the fact that androids had a beating heart in that chest.

“Right shoulder dislocated, Low power mode initiated, secondary cooling system compromised.” The woman rambled. It took Gavin a moment to understand she was looking at the list on Gavin’s phone, while checking all of the little errors in the log for herself.

She ran her hands down the android’s spine after freeing him from the drenched clothing, documented each little thing that was out of place. She reminded him more of a doctor than a technician.

“Spinal wiring damaged, use of legs compromised.”

Gavin cringed. “So how bad is it?”

“Could be worse.” Cindy muttered without looking at him. “Once I know what parts to repair and replace, he’ll be fine.”

“I thought it was in the list?”

Cindy gestured to the android. “I need to clear out all that water and then I can see what parts are actually damaged, and what is just giving out false reading because of the water in there.”

“Fine… do your pseudo-science shit…”

The woman sighed. “Look, I have a degree in android cybernetics. I know what I am doing, and even when it looks stupid to someone who has no idea about it, this is necessary, okay?”

Gavin was tired of it. He didn’t like looking at his partner like this. Cory wasn’t weak. Cory didn’t lose suspects.

Cory only fucked up when Gavin’s life was in danger.

Had that been the case? Again? Gavin scoffed. A taser was painful, but that was all there was about it. He had a few encounters with them, and a being made fully of circuits and wires, willingly jumping into the line of that thing was extremely stupid in the detective’s eyes.

“So he’ll be fine.”

“Once I got all the parts, yes.”

“Can I take him home?”

The woman sighed. “I can tell you, when I am done cleaning that shit out of him.” She looked tired, worn out. Her make up was smudged and she seemed irritated.

“These two do nothing but get in trouble.”

Gavin grimaced. “What do you mean?”

“Connor almost died last night.”

“…I thought they’re on vacation.”

“And some asshole tried to kill him.” The woman snapped. “Let’s get this idiot to a facility so I can get him looked at properly.”

Not much later Gavin was in the precinct, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, nursing a cup of coffee, while Cindy was repairing what she could in a facility a few blocks away.

He had the report open on his terminal, but he couldn’t concentrate. He had lost the suspect, and Cory was _hurt_.

He wondered if the little dive would have any consequences for him, but he doubted it. Maybe he’d get a cold. And a day off. He was tired of working like this.

With a sigh he gazed back at the report and struggled to finish it. That wasn’t like him. Apart from the androids of the station, he had the most consistent record of finished reports, even when cases went bad.

He was so hardwired on finishing it that he didn’t notice the woman next to him until she cleared her throat. He jumped slightly, almost spilled the coffee.

“Warn a man!” he snarled at her.

He hadn’t expected Cindy to show up here again at all. “Call next time!”

“I’ve been up for almost 40 hours. I really needed a coffee.” She lifted the cup in her hand. “And there’s a few things I need to tell you before you can take him home, so I came here.”

He followed her before he even realized he had gotten up. He could take Cory home then. Good. No need to keep him in the facility and wait for days to see him again.

He took his car down the few blocks, felt uncomfortable in the silence.

“So what’s wrong with him? Why didn’t eh come with you?”

“He’s pretty much fine, except for one thing.”

“And that is?” 

“The taser damaged his spine, and that portion of wires and sensors needs to be replaced.”

“And you haven’t done that yet, why?”

“I need the parts to switch it out. They’ll come in in a few days but until then, he can’t walk.”

“Fucking great.”

“And,” Cindy put up a hand to silence him, “The electrical discharge shorted out a few circuits and raked up the sensor sensitivity.”

“That means?”

The woman scoffed. “He’s constantly getting readings from the damaged sensors. With a child model that would be equal to pain. With him it’s a constant string of error messages, putting his system under stress.”

“And there’s no way to stop that.”

“Not at the moment.”

As they entered the facility, Gavin felt the tension rise.

Countless corridors later they entered a room and Gavin cursed when he saw the android.

Cory was half slumped over in an armchair, eyes closed, LED a steady yellow. He didn’t react when Gavin got closer, and didn’t move or otherwise acknowledged the human’s presence, even when he brushed a hand over his shoulder.

“I’ll call you when the parts are in.” Cindy muttered as she watched from her door and suppressed a yawn.

“He’s okay, ignoring that situation, right? I can’t accidentally break him?”

She shook her head. “Just don’t drop him.”

Gavin rolled his eyes with a scoff and picked the android up.

Carrying Cory wasn’t very hard, the lightweight alloy allowed even the smaller woman to haul androids around as if they weighted nothing. It still bothered him to carry his partner through the facility and to his car.

He got him into the passenger seat and buckled him in before he crouched down and sat down at the edge of the door, one hand on the android’s leg, the other grasping one of the limp hands. “You online at all?”

He almost missed the soft nod. “Okay. Good. I’m gonna tell Fowler and then we’re going home.”

Gavin got back up and shut the door, called Captain Fowler and informed him of the situation. He even managed to get two days off out of it.

When Gavin returned Cory had shifted his position, possibly to give the damaged sensors less to focus on.

Driving home was uneventful and when Gavin pulled into the parking lot at his apartment, he decided to question the android.

“Why did you fucking jump in front of that taser? It’s not like I’ve never gotten shocked by one.”

It took long seconds before the android responded. He still hadn’t opened his eyes or moved much.

“The amperage on the device was significantly higher than what a human could withstand.” Cory replied, and Gavin found it almost strange to hear his voice after nearly four hours of absolute silence.

His voice sounded strained, as if static was interfering.

And Gavin didn’t know what to say. Cory had probably saved his life.

“Thanks.” He muttered under his breath as he took the keys out of the ignition and opened the door.

When he picked the android up, Cory flinched under his hands when the brushed across his back.

“Sorry… this is weird.”

In the elevator Gavin glared at the indicator. “Why is it always you that gets hurt?”

“Humans take longer to heal.”

“No shit.”

“You asked.”

The human snarled, waited for the doors to open and stomped down the hall to his apartment. He managed to get the door open without much hassle and brought the android into the bedroom. He figured the couch would be too uncomfortable with a sore back. Or whatever the android equivalent was.

“So, what are we gonna do now?”

“I will enter standby to take the stress of the consistent errors off my system.”

Gavin hung his shoulders. “Yeah you do that… Is it like… pain?”

“Not in the human sense, but it is quite uncomfortable.”

“Can I do anything? Put ice on it or something?”

Cory shook his head and turned to his side with what seemed a lot more effort than he would usually need. Gavin resisted the urge to help him.

Back now towards the human, Gavin plucked the dark shirt out of the android’s pants.

“There is nothing to see.” Corry almost whispered as he grasped Gavin’s pillow and drew it to his chest to bury his face into it.

The detective realized that as well. There was nothing to see. But the android definitely shuddered when he drew his fingers along a certain spot in his spine.

“And you’re just gonna lie here and endure?”

“I have no choice.”

“You’d think there’d be android painkillers in the making or some shit.”

“It isn’t pain, Gavin.”

“Being flashed with text in my face, I’d call a pain in the ass.”

“Annoying and stressful. But not painful.”

Gavin lifted an eyebrow and took his hand away, then poked a finger into his partners spine. It made him jolt, gasp and move away several inches, while he turned to face Gavin, eyes narrow and a glare in his face that could have killed.

His disheveled look almost made it look cute.

“…You know, that definitely looks like pain to me.”

“Don’t _ever_ do that again.” Cory snarled as he lowered himself back into the sheets and pressed the pillow into his face.

The human scoffed and gently placed a warm hand over the damaged area. The android sagged at the sensation, almost seemed to melt into the sheets, with a sound akin to a sigh.

“So that does something?”

Gavin crawled across the android to his side of the bed, keeping his hand on his back the whole time. When he slumped down next to his partner, Cory was looking at him with tired eyes.

“Warmth? That it? Or the pressure?”

“The pressure keeps the plating from moving against the damaged wires.”

Gavin nodded to himself. That was something he could work with. “Next time, don’t fall into the fucking lake.” He complained as he pulled the duvet over both of them.

“The water didn’t do this. It was the taser.”

“Then don’t run into that again.”

“I don’t intend to repeat that. Unless absolutely necessary.”

Gavin scoffed and placed his head on the pillow Cory was still holding. With his free hand he grasped one of the android’s and kissed it.

It was a small moment of peacefulness. Until a strange taste entered the detective’s mouth.

“The fuck did you have your hands in?”

“Hand sanitizer.”

“God that’s disgusting.”

“Did _you_ wash your hands?”

“I took a fucking shower, because I smelled like a fucking pond!”

“I was wondering why your scent was so similar to that of Officer Person.”

“Fuck you.”

“You used her shampoo, didn’t you?”

“Because someone took mine!”

“I think you just forgot to buy new shampoo for the precinct.”

“You don’t know anything.” Gavin huffed and stuck his tongue out at the android.

Anticipating the reaction, Cory struck his tongue out at the same time and made them touch.

Gavin froze for a second before he shuffled back into a half sitting position. “Fuck you, Cory.”

“I advise against-“

Gavin silenced the android with a kiss to his lips.

“We’ll figure something out.”

“I would prefer not to move from this position.”

“Oh, that can be arranged too.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Gavin.”

“No, I’m being hilarious.”

“Take a nap.”

“Dun wanna.”

“Shhh.” Cory whispered and closed his eyes. “I will enter standby now.”

“Yeah, yeah. You do that.”

“I will. Shut up.”

Gavin smirked and leaned in to lick across Cory’s face.

“…you’re disgusting.”

The human let lose a laugh that was so loud it echoed in the room, but the android didn’t mind.

It was a strange kind of peacefulness, and yet he enjoyed it.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are always appreciated, But if you have no words to add, I appreciate the silence.


End file.
